Aid Effectiveness in Fragile States

The Center has a signature program on aid effectiveness that has to date focused on relatively good performers and conventional development circumstances. The Fragile States Program will extend this work to address what might be called the flip side of the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account - those poorly performing states that are ineligible, thanks to poor governance and weak institutional capacity, for MCA resources. This program will examine the different approaches, principles, and mechanisms required for effective aid delivery in fragile states. An initial step will be to develop a taxonomy of fragile states that would group those with similar problems (such as conflict, recent post-conflict, long term governance challenges, and others). The project will then address aid effectiveness in fragile states in specific sectors and issue areas. As with our work on monitoring the U.S. development initiatives of the Millennium Challenge Account and the Global HIV/AIDS initiative, we will examine specific practice and lessons learned in select donor interventions and country cases. The research will build on recent CGD work and products, including Todd Moss's research on Zimbabwe, Nancy Birdsall's research on Pakistan, Steve Radelet's focus on Liberia, and the Center's lauded publication, On the Brink: Weak States and US National Security, and Short of the Goal: US Policy and Poorly Performing States.