Motivation: The Fragile States Initiative at the Center for Global Development is soliciting papers for a new project on donor strategies to mitigate weaknesses and build sustainable economies in fragile states. In particular, the transition from immediate post-conflict assistance to longer-term development assistance needs to be better understood. There is little guidance to policymakers on what to do in these “rescues.” The proposed project aims (a) to understand the consequences of fragility, (b) to identify triggers that suggest the timing of transition from post-conflict work to longer term development assistance and (c) to propose innovative solutions to improve the effectiveness of aid to fragile states. The project is aimed at a broad audience including policymakers and practitioners working on post-conflict reconstruction and development in difficult environments.
Papers: The project will finance a number of working papers, with a view to publishing a compilation in the future. The goal is to produce practical research that will enable policymakers working on weak and fragile states to think through the challenges they face on the ground. To this end, we invite papers on the following topics:
- Provision of humanitarian and/or emergency aid
- Revival of basic public services in a post-conflict transition process
- Consequences of service provision by semi-state or non-state actors
- Process of transition from post-conflict to development assistance
- Time frame and milestones in the transition, both for donors and for national budget authorities
- Proposals for- drawing the unemployed (ex-combatants, disaffected youth and/or other groups) into productive activities
- Strategies to facilitate a functioning private sector
- Building of institutions to facilitate peaceful and stable transition away from post-conflict rebuilding to longer term political stability and economic growth.
Authors are encouraged to submit a one page summary of proposed work along with a budget of up to $10,000 per project. Collaborations, particularly with an interdisciplinary focus, are welcome. Submissions from practitioners are also very welcome. The deadline for submission of the abstract is February 6, 2009. Delivery of papers is expected in June 2009.
Timeline: CGD will host a workshop for the authors of papers selected for funding early in the writing process, to exchange ideas. Authors of papers selected for final publication will meet again towards the end of the writing process, to present their papers and get feedback on their work. The papers will be published either as CGD working papers or compiled in some way by mutual agreement with the authors.
For more information, contact Vijaya Ramachandran at vramachandran@cgdev.org.