In recent years social cohesion has been receiving increasing attention not only in policy circles but also in academic discussions. The COVID- 19 pandemic has made the relevance of social cohesion tangible in new ways. Governments, civil society and international organizations underline the importance of social cohesion to tackle the crises. Public appeals to „stand together“ and “help each other” are constant. Still, many of questions remain open: What do we mean precisely when talking about social cohesion? How do we measure it? What drives social cohesion? What leverage does development cooperation have in this area?

The goal of this series of online events was to bring together different perspectives and insights on this expanding research and policy agenda. The “Social Cohesion Week” started off on Monday with an online panel discussion about current developments in the field of social cohesion. We aimed at identifying the questions that will dominate the research agenda in the next years.

Addressing social cohesion from a variety of perspectives was the objective of a number of smaller online working groups which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. The questions discussed included: What role does business development play for social cohesion? How can social security and tax systems influence social cohesion? How do the transformation of societal values and political institutions relate to social cohesion? How does social cohesion emerge in the aftermath of conflict?
 
Practitioners’ perspectives on social cohesion was the focus of a panel on Wednesday afternoon. In this session new challenges and topics as well as particular salient knowledge gaps were discussed, putting an emphasis on what kind of evidence current and future development cooperation practice requires.
 
The Social Cohesion Week was closed on Thursday with the online launch of the “Social Cohesion Hub”, a web portal created by the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) that has the dedicated goal of bringing together researchers and practitioners working on social cohesion.