FRAGILITY CENTERED.
GLAFPOL is a research and analytical firm based in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, delivering data-driven, locally sourced insights that help organizations and governments navigate the complexities of fragile and conflict-affected environments.
Our work is rooted in a fragility-centered approach, conducting research that spans governance, security, humanitarian challenges, and the critical links between environmental issues and development outcomes. Our team of local researchers, with extensive networks and access to remote, hard-to-reach areas, works under the guidance of experienced professionals in research and data science. This approach ensures that our research and data is analyzed, contextualized, and translated into insights firmly grounded in real-world conditions, precisely tailored to meet our clients' unique needs.
Our services range from field-based data collection and primary research to in-depth analysis of political, conflict, security, and humanitarian developments, with advanced predictive analytics to forecast trends and anticipate emerging risks.
RESEARCH IN FRAGILE-CONTEXTS
We conduct research in settings where political instability, weak governance, and humanitarian crises interact to create long-running cycles of uncertainty. Fragility is not merely a symptom of conflict or governance failure; it fuels insecurity, weakens institutions, and deepens social and environmental vulnerabilities. These forces are interconnected: governance struggles to reassert control, humanitarian needs grow beyond capacity, and insecurity undermines recovery, reinforcing fragility over time. Understanding how these dynamics compound one another is central to our research approach, which is designed to capture the layered and evolving nature of fragility on the ground.
Our research framework is both context-driven and adaptive. We reject one-size-fits-all models and static indicators. Instead, we examine how political authority, elite interests, conflict dynamics, and economic pressures interact and shift over time. This lens allows us to identify emerging risks, trace power struggles, and understand the evolving structures that shape fragile environments. It is a framework built not only to explain current dynamics, but to anticipate what may come next.
We combine granular, locally sourced knowledge with structured analytical methods to produce research that is both rigorous and grounded in place. Our teams draw on deep field networks, historical context, and mixed-methods data to build a layered understanding of fragile and fast-changing environments. This approach ensures that our work captures both the nuances of local realities and the broader forces shaping them.
DATA DRIVEN INSIGHTS
We take a data-driven approach to understanding political, security, and social developments in fragile settings. Our work draws on diverse sources to construct a layered view of how authority is configured, contested, and exercised. We combine in-depth interviews with political elites and community actors, systematic tracking of governance and security events, and large-scale perception surveys to capture how people experience and interpret change in real time. This blend of qualitative and quantitative data forms the foundation of our research.
At the center of this work is a structured data system that continuously monitors key developments across Somalia and the wider region. It maintains detailed, time-stamped records of political transitions, conflict incidents, and socio-political shifts, with data reaching back to 2020. This infrastructure enables us to identify emerging patterns and link micro-level developments to broader trajectories. By combining historical context with real-time data, we move beyond event-level reporting toward deeper analysis of how fragility evolves and persists.
In addition to monitoring and field data, we apply advanced quantitative methods–including statistical modeling, machine learning, and composite scoring–to assess risks, trace trajectories, and compare stability across regions. This approach enables us to produce repeatable, evidence–based assessments that inform action, sharpen early warning systems, and support more targeted, context-sensitive responses in fragile environments.
GLAFPOL exists and thrives because of our people.
Our core team, spread across the U.S. and East Africa, is supported by a network of consultant field researchers and local partners.
Embracing a mentality of doing things differently, we emphasize partnerships and a start-up spirit, ensuring that every employee, consultant, and intern is, first and foremost, a researcher and an analyst.
