COVID-19’s wide-ranging health and economic impacts have permeated across the world, and much of the research community has pivoted to respond.

On December 3, IPA, the International Growth Centre (IGC), and Yale University’s Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE) hosted “Expanding the Evidence for Policy and Interventions in Cox’s Bazar,” a day-long policy workshop discussing research findings on the influx of Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar and how evidence can inform programming and policy. The workshop was attended by over 90 policymakers and practitioners in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Recent studies of community security and peacebuilding efforts have found that relatively inexpensive interventions can move the needle on measures of intergroup trust and social capital, even when far more intensive programs have failed to do so.