Greater synergy and improved collaboration: Do complex partnerships deliver on the promise in countries emerging from armed conflict?

Complex or multi-stakeholder partnerships—those that include several actors of different types, i.e. public, private or civic—are becoming increasingly popular in different contexts and across policy domains. This is also the case in countries emerging from armed conflict, where many donors are actively promoting partnerships of different kinds that are seen as a solution to a number of concerns from efficiency and effectiveness to empowerment, trust building and local ownership. However, the actual evidence supporting these assumptions remains scarce. This article focuses on several core characteristics of intra-partnership dynamics through original empirical research on complex partnerships operating in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the DRC. It concludes by showing that real existing complex partnerships in countries emerging from armed conflict demonstrate compositional characteristics typically attributed to complex partnerships but not the modes of governance expected of such partnerships, failing to exploit their added value as a result

Preliminary indications that recombinant human IL-16 attracts and stimulates lymphocytes of the amphibian, Xenopus laevis implying an ancestral role for CD4 as a cytokine receptor

© 2020 The D1 domain of the CD4 co-receptor interacts with MHC class II during Helper CD4+ Th-cell activation and effector function in all gnathostomes but the sequence and structure of this region are not well conserved through phylogeny. Conversely, the proximal D4 domain of CD4 is the binding site of the cytokine IL-16 and is highly conserved, allowing for promiscuous binding of IL-16 to CD4 between disparate gnathostomes. We report here that recombinant human IL-16 (rhIL-16) bound to Xenopus lymphocytes to allow separation on a magnetic column. Incubation with rhIL-16 resulted in an increased expression of MHC class II mRNA by Xenopus CD8− cells more than by CD8+ cells. An in vivo assay demonstrated that rhIL-16 can recruit lymphocytes of Xenopus frogs. Our data suggest that a subset of Xenopus laevis lymphocytes express a CD4 homolog on their surface that is capable of binding IL-16. These results imply that CD4 most likely arose from a primordial cytokine receptor

4, 6-Dihydroxynicotinic acid

This chapter exposes the limits of El Salvador’s ‘peace’. In particular, it analyses the development of post-conflict violence, exposing both ‘continuities’ with and ‘discontinuities’ from historical processes. I emphasise that more than a debate between ‘old’ and ‘new’ violence, it is important to explore how the political and economic imperatives of neoliberalism reinforce and indeed exacerbate historic structural conditions of inequality and exclusion. Moreover, exclusionary and polarised political attitudes still shape the ways in which violence is understood and legislated against in the post-war period. First, the discussion introduces the limited political context of peacebuilding, emphasising the ‘narrowness’ of the process, both in terms of the actors involved and the scope of the agreement for mandating reform. I then examine the changing panorama of violent actors, paying particular attention to the issue of youth gangs, who are arguably the most symbolic representation of ‘new’ violence in the post-war context. The emergence of violent non-state actors is now seen as one of the greatest threats to democratic governance in the region (McCoy, 2006). Less attention is paid to the role of the state and civil society in perpetuating this violence: the final sections of the chapter therefore explore the emergence of gangs and offer a critical analysis of both state and society’s response to the issue of violence. A key argument of this chapter is that violence in El Salvador has not emerged in a political or economic vacuum. It is a product of uneven development and political choices as well as being reliant on the active engagement of civil society for its reproduction. For this reason, the discussion is structured around three key themes which are reflective of certain continuities along historic axes of conflict: violence, exclusion and polarisation