A Feinstein team including Helen Young, Andy Catley, Elizabeth Stites, and Anastasia Marshak held a one day workshop with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome entitled “Mind the Gap: Bridging the Research, Practice and Policy Divide to enhance resilience in conflict settings.” FAO Deputy Director General Dan Gustafson opened the workshop and welcomed the renewed collaboration between Feinstein and FAO, which has a long history. Andy Catley reflected on some of this history, followed by presentations of two Feinstein papers commissioned by FAO:

• “Twin peaks: The drivers of vulnerability and resilience in protracted conflict settings: the case of Sudan, Chad and South Sudan” by Helen Young and Anastasia Marshak
• “Transformation of livelihoods and post conflict recovery, a comparative study” by Elizabeth Stites

FAO senior staff from different divisions gave their response to the papers, including the relevance of this work to ongoing FAO policies and programs.  A briefing paper and the two research papers will be published early in the new year.