​The effects of war are brutal and wide-ranging. Markets become volatile, economies destabilize, the accumulation of human capital stalls, and citizens’ trust in public institutions disintegrates. We know this. We know far less, however, about what happens after conflict comes to an end – about how families recover and states build back better. In 2012, SLRC implemented the first round of an original household survey, interviewing 10,000 households in six conflict-affected situations: Pakistan, DRC, South Sudan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Uganda. That survey set out to provide a snapshot of people's livelihoods, their access to and experience of basic services, and their perceptions of state actors. In 2014/15, SLRC will go back to those same households in order to examine what has or hasn’t changed – and to find out why. This panel survey is being complemented by country-focused qualitative research, which looks to explore specific areas of post-war recovery further.

Pulling together experts working on recovery and development in places affected by conflict, this event shares the initial findings from SLRC’s cross-country survey as well as IRC’s latest research on community-driven development in conflict-affected situations. It will be of major interest to those interested in the following questions:

• Are people successfully rebuilding their livelihoods? If so, how?
• How are they currently accessing basic services?
• What do they think of the state?
• And what sort of action by states, civil society and aid actors is not only reaching them but actually making a positive difference?