Societal well-being in fragile and conflict-affected settings: Development of a new global Index

Mass displacement, armed conflict, and effects of the pandemic are disproportionately felt in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Long-term peace and security are inextricably tied to the health and well-being of a population. However, there is limited evidence on the longer-term health and societal impacts among those who have survived conflict & gender-based violence or other societal shocks.

Our research addresses an urgent need to bring together transdisciplinary methods (public health, developmental economics, climate change, gender, statistics, social science) to innovate how we conceptualise and measure health and inequality and their contributions to peace and security.

We aim to develop a new global index focused on key factors needed for peace, security, and health in conflict-affected and other fragile settings, using a gender lens.

Our research addresses an evidence gap by: (1) developing a new global index to assess key factors needed for peace, security, and health in conflict-affected and other fragile settings; and (2) developing innovative approaches to measurement that account for missing data, challenging settings, sensitive topics, and hard to reach populations.

The new global Index will be a tool that stakeholders can use to identify key priorities, needed reforms and challenges that work towards achieving local and international priorities which improve societal well-being.