Ethical considerations should remain at the forefront of researchers’ minds when conducting evaluations of development, humanitarian, and peacebuilding interventions. To make sure that authors for the Journal of Development Effectiveness (JDEff) take their ethical obligations seriously, the journal has added a new ethics-focused step in the publication process. These new ethical considerations will apply to the journal’s upcoming special issue on peacebuilding – more on that below – and beyond.
The new policy touches on two separate types of ethical considerations: 1) inclusivity of research teams, and 2) communications between participants and researchers conducting randomized control trials (RCTs). While responding to separate issues, both of these new policies aim to minimize power imbalances when authors from the Global North conduct research in the Global South.
Authors submitting studies to JDEff will now need to include an author reflexivity statement, along with their article, to encourage them to think deeply about their collaborative practices. In particular, the statement should discuss whether local researchers were involved and credited as authors. This statement, which will be published alongside the article, aims to raise awareness among researchers about the power dynamics between researchers from high-, middle-, and low-income countries, as well as the extent to which individual authors may be contributing to inequalities. The end goal is to ensure that local researchers are included in substantive roles, not just as research assistants or uncredited junior colleagues.
Then, for RCTs, the journal now asks authors to provide additional details about the study design, such as the case for equipoise, a CONSORT diagram, and the informed consent process. One key point is whether and how participants were informed that they were participating in a randomized trial. Requiring authors to describe these processes increases the overall transparency of the research process and the relationship between the research subjects and the research team.
This new ethics policy adds to the journal’s longstanding commitment to ensuring that all research has been conducted ethically, including obtaining appropriate ethics approvals from institutional review boards to protect the rights of human research subjects.
Peacebuilding special issue
As conflicts proliferate around the world, it is more essential than ever to understand which interventions successfully promote peace. Yet rigorous evaluations of peacebuilding interventions remain rare. Our upcoming special issue on peacebuilding will draw together studies that provide new evidence on the effectiveness of a range of approaches to reducing conflict. Because of the ethical sensitivities of working with conflict-affected populations, this issue represents an ideal time to phase in the journal’s new ethics policy.
The special issue is seeking papers that:
- Offer new evidence on which peacebuilding approaches are effective
- Show which approaches yield the greatest return on investment
- Identify key knowledge gaps in the peacebuilding field and solve methodological challenges to allow those gaps to be closed
- Make advances in measuring peace outcomes
This special issue does not favor any one specific methodology, as long as rigorous methods are applied appropriately. Both empirical and conceptual papers are welcome, although conceptual papers should be grounded in data or a thorough literature review.
For more information about submission to the special issue, see the call for papers. The deadline for submission is 31 October 2025.