Can Jobs Programs Build Peace? - A Systematic Review of Employment, Peace, and Stability

Jul 19, 2026

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A study examines whether employment programs can build peace and improve social stability, despite large global spending exceeding $10 billion since 2005. It synthesizes three evidence streams: microfoundations of instability to derive testable theories of change; critical reviews of academic and grey literature on peace-related outcomes; and systematic review of learning from 400+ interventions. Results show strong theoretical reasons for potential peace effects, yet only limited evidence on overall impacts and causal pathways.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages26

Reading Time1 h 6 min

Introduction

Theories of change linking jobs and peace

Systematic review methodology and evidence base

Findings and implications for program learning

Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Can Jobs Programs Build Peace? Tilman Brück, Neil T. N. Ferguson, Valeria Izzi, and Wolfgang Stojetz In the last decade, well over $10 billion has been spent on employment programs designed to contribute to peace and stability. Despite the outlay, whether these programs perform, and how they do so, remain open questions. This study conducts three reviews to derive the status quo of knowledge. First, it draws on academic literature on the microfoundations of instability to distill testable theories of how employment programs could affect stability atthe micro level. Second, it analyses academic and grey literature that directly evaluates the impacts of employment programs on peace-related outcomes. Third, it conducts a systematic review of program-based learning from over 400 interventions. This study finds good theoretical reasons to believe that employment programs could contribute to peace. However, only very limited evidence exists on overall impacts on peace or on the pathways underlying the theories of change. At the program level, the review finds strong evidence that contributions to peace and stability are often simply assumed to have occurred. This provides a major challenge for the justification of continued spending on jobs for peace programs. Instead, systematic and rigorous learning on the impacts of jobs for peace programs needs tobe scaled up urgently. JEL Codes: H56, H84, I25, I38, O12 Keywords: Employment interventions, peace building, jobs, conflict, jobs for peace. Introduction It is logical, if sometimes hopeful, that an employment program should boost the labor market performance of its participants (Adoho et al. 2014 ; Cho and Honoratie 2014 ; Attanasio et al. 2015), even if much remains to be learned (Blattman and Ralston 2015) . Similarly, well-designed peacebuilding interventions might, reasonably, be expected to contribute to peace and promote stability (Fearon et al. 2008 ; Ackett 2011 ; Gaarder and Annan 2013 ; Gilligan et al. 2013; Blattman et al. 2017) . Linking these two concepts are a series of programs that aim to build peace and The World Bank Research Observer © The Author(s) 2020 . Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License ([http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please [contact journals.permissions@oup.com](contact journals.permissions@oup.com) doi: 10 . 1093/wbro/lkaa004 36:234–259 Downloaded from [https://academic.oup.com/wbro/article/36/2/234/5916415 by World Bank user on](https://academic.oup.com/wbro/article/36/2/234/5916415 by World Bank user on) 13 September 2023 stability by stimulating employment. Since 2005, well over $10 billion has been spent by international donors on this class of intervention.1 This article tests what is known about the rationale and performance of these programs. Do employment programs really contribute to peacebuilding? And if so, how? To answer these questions, this study produces the first comprehensive overview of theory and evidence on the linkages between employment programs and peace and social stability, built on three related reviews. First, it analyzes the academic literature on micro-level drivers of violent and other antisocial behaviors that could, potentially, be influenced by employment. The resulting insights are then applied to specify testable theories of change. Second, the study undertakes a critical evaluation of the academic and grey literatures in order to establish the empirical evidence for linkages between employment programs and indicators and

FAQs

What is the central question of the study?

Whether employment programs truly contribute to peacebuilding and how they might do so.

How does the study build its evidence base?

It combines three reviews: micro-level theory development, evaluation of academic and grey literature on peace outcomes, and a systematic review of program-based learning across 400+ interventions.

What do the findings say about impacts on peace and stability?

The study finds strong theoretical reasons to expect peace effects, but only very limited evidence on overall impacts and on the pathways described by the theories of change.

Jul 19, 2026

Upload by Violet