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Fragile States

CGD research on fragile states examines how rich countries and other development actors can best assist fragile states and their citizens; related work focuses on understanding the transition from immediate post-conflict assistance to longer-term development assistance.

Program goals include

  • understanding the causes and consequences of state fragility;

  • determining opportunities for policy intervention and the sequencing of such interventions;

  • finding ways to improve the effectiveness of aid to fragile states; and,

  • identifying turning points that signal when donors should shift from post-conflict to longer-term development assistance.

CGD senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran leads this research to help inform and influence policymakers and practitioners working on post-conflict reconstruction and development in difficult environments.

Together with CGD visiting fellow Satish Chand, professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, Ramachandran has commissioned a series of papers by currently or recently active aid practitioners in post-conflict assistance programs. Drawing upon these papers, Ramachandran and Chand plan to develop practical guidelines to help policymakers and practitioners examine and respond to on-the-ground challenges. Areas of interest include an analysis of donor relationships with the military, the sequencing and coordination of donor activity in post-conflict settings, the value of the European Union’s Stability Instrument, the revival of basic public services in post-conflict countries, and the incentives of government actors in various post-conflict settings.

Previous CGD work on weak and fragile states includes the following working papers, books and reports:

Related Experts

Related Working Groups

The Future of US Government Development Assistance to Fragile States
The Unintended Consequences of Rich Countries’ Anti–Money Laundering Policies on Poor Countries

Parent Topic

Related Fragile States Content

January 15, 2010
Article
The Pentagon as a Development Agency? Q&A with Stewart...
Is the U.S. military’s growing involvement in activities formerly reserved for civilian-led agencies such as the State Department and USAID good for the U.S.? How about for developing countries? CGD research fellow Stewart Patrick investigated these and other questions as the lead co-author of Integrating 21st Century Security and Development Assistance (PDF, 784 KB), a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Task Force on Non-Traditional Security Assistance. Patrick sees cause for concern—but also encouraging signs of an emerging consensus on a fresh whole-of-government approach to U.S. foreign policy that integrates all three of the so-called three Ds: Defense, Diplomacy and Development. Q: According to the New York Times, a forthcoming U.S. Army manual will elevate stabilizing war-torn nations as a mission for the U.S. military, putting it on par with war fighting. The Times quotes the new manual as saying: "Winning battles and engagements is important but alone is not sufficient. Shaping the civil situation is just as important to success." Is this part of a larger trend? A: Yes. The new manual reflects a sea change in the role of the U.S. military, the mission of which is to fight and win the nation's wars. But Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us that you only win the war if you win the peace. Success in both counter-insurgency and "stability" operations requires fostering home-grown institutions that can provide security, governance and social services. For the Pentagon this represents a huge cultural shift from the 1990s, when the uniformed military disdained "military operations other than war" (or "MOOTWA"). And it's a big adjustment for the Bush administration, which came to office disdainful of "nation-building" -- an attitude encapsulated by Condoleezza Rice's remark in a 2000 Foreign Affairs article that "we don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten." The military's expanding nation-building role has made it a significant provider not only of security but also of aid for governance and development assistance. These trends show up in U.S. foreign aid figures:between 2002 and 2005, the share of all U.S. official development assistance (ODA) channeled through the Pentagon nearly quadrupled, rising from just under 6 percent to nearly 22 percent -- or approximately $5.5 billion. Q: What's driving this trend? A: As our report outlines, there are three main factors. The first is the Bush administration's strategic focus on the "global war on terror," which treats fragile and war-torn states as the main battlegrounds of the 21st century. As the military's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review explains, the United States needs agile aid instruments to help build the capacities of fragile states that are recovering from conflict and to contain "ungoverned areas" that can be exploited by terrorists and other non-state groups. The second is the vacuum left by civilian U.S. agencies. Despite Condi Rice's commitment to "transformational diplomacy," both the State Department and USAID have fallen short in their efforts to deploy adequate personnel and other resources to the field, particularly in insecure environments. A good example is the difficulty of both agencies to staff "provincial reconstruction teams" (PRTs) in Afghanistan and Iraq. This shortcoming reflects the third driving force: chronic underinvestment by the United States in the non-military instruments of state-building. As my colleague Kaysie Brown and I pointed out in a recent CGD working paper, the dramatic expansion of the Department of Defense's aid role reflects a serious mismatch between the Secretary of State's responsibilities to control U.S. foreign assistance and the actual resources budgeted to the civilian side of the U.S. government to fulfill this role. Q: What are the implications for U.S. development assistance of the growing Pentagon involvement in "nation building"? Is this good or should it be seen as a cause for concern? A: It really depends on the context. In violent environments like Iraq and Afghanistan -- where friendly governments confront active, determined insurgencies and civilian actors have difficulty operating safely -- a big military role in nation-building is both inevitable and welcome. In such "non-permissive" contexts, military civil affairs teams will be called upon not only to provide public security but also to help restore the rule of law, re-establish local governance, revive commercial activity, and restore basic services. What is potentially more problematic for U.S. development and foreign policy is the Pentagon's growing aid role in more peaceful environments. Since 9/11, the Department of Defense (DoD) has expanded its role in the developing world, taking on tasks that might more appropriately be undertaken by the State Department, USAID, or other civilian actors. These activities include new authorities to train and equip foreign security forces for counterterrorism missions; the establishment of a new Combatant Command for Africa (AFRICOM); and the Bush administration's Building Global Partnership (BGP) Act, which would further expand DoD's assistance authority. Unless handled carefully, these trends could skew U.S. engagement with fragile developing countries in a military direction, undermining broader efforts to build effective, accountable, and sustainable local institutions. Q: There's been a lot of talk recently about the need for U.S. "Smart Power," that is, relying less on military and more on civilian instruments. Is there any hope of building U.S. civilian capabilities? A: The prospects are better today than at any time since 9/11. There is serious momentum, both outside and inside the U.S. government, to re-balance the three-legged stool of U.S. national security, so that the wobbly diplomatic and development legs can keep up with the defense leg. The need to invest in these civilian instruments was a central theme of the recent Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Smart Power and HELP Commission reports, and it's the main recommendation of our own Task Force Report. These voices have been echoed within the Bush administration. In his eloquent Landon Lecture at Kansas State University in November 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a clarion call for greater federal investment in U.S. civilian agencies, to help make a difference in fragile and war-torn states. Equally important, the administration has finally put its money where its mouth is. In its budget request released last week, the White House asked Congress for more than a thousand foreign service officers in State and USAID, as well as for $250 million to fund a new Civilian Stabilization Initiative to create a civilian expeditionary capability to support stabilization and reconstruction operations. This would include hundreds of staff in State and USAID and a 2,000-person Civilian Reserve Corps--a sort of Peace Corps on steroids--drawn from U.S. citizens with appropriate technical expertise. These are all promising developments. The two dark clouds on the horizon are the political calendar and the looming recession. Although advisers to Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama have all been on record as supporting strong civilian capacity, securing passage of major new spending in an election year can be problematic, particularly at a time of looming budget austerity. Q: What's needed to make sure the Pentagon's expanding role advances rather than detracts from development prospects? A: The overriding objective should be to ensure that the Pentagon's expanding aid role is not independent but embedded in a broader U.S.-government wide strategy, with civilians having the lead in determining policy and integrating all instruments of U.S. national influence, both in Washington and in the field. This should be equally true both for post-conflict operations and for U.S. military assistance to fragile states. In Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, it is critical to involve civilian development and governance experts in the design and evaluation of U.S. reconstruction efforts, even where U.S. troops are taking the lead in implementation. When it comes to more "permissive" environments -- such as the U.S. military activities of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa or the newly created AFRICOM -- the executive branch and Congress should work to ensure that the U.S. military sticks to its lane, focusing on security sector issues and military-to-military cooperation, while leaving development and governance interventions to civilian professionals who have the training and expertise required to promote effective institutions. The ultimate goal should be a "whole of government" approach based on a partnership of equals.
January 15, 2010
Blog Post
The Newest Security Contractors in Iraq: Ex-combatants...
Vijaya Ramachandran and Chris Blattman

A British private security firm, Sabre International, is sponsoring the employment of Sierra Leoneans for security jobs in Iraq. According to its own website, the company holds multiple aviation security contracts for three airports in Iraq (Baghdad International Airport, Mosul Airport, and Najaf International Airport).

January 15, 2010
Article
Five Years On, U.S. Lacks Strategy for Fragile States
The attacks of 9/11 prompted a decisive shift in U.S. rhetoric towards fragile states. Previously neglected, weak and fragile states were seen as a core development issue and a looming threat to global security. Five years later, what is the U.S. doing to meet this challenge? CGD research fellow Stewart Patrick recently analyzed the U.S. budget to see if the spending matched the rhetoric. He argues in a Q&A that the U.S. has yet to respond with sufficient funding or a coherent strategy. Q. What are fragile states and why are they important for international development and U.S. security? A: Fragile states have trouble performing the most basic functions of any effective state: delivering security to their people, governing legitimately, managing their economies, and providing basic social welfare. As many as 50 countries in the developing world fall into this category. They range from Pakistan, a brittle and chronically unstable nation, to war-torn Liberia, just starting to recover from decades of violence. In some cases fragility is closely linked to poverty. In others like Zimbabwe the big culprit is bad leadership by authoritarian elites. Whatever their origins, fragile states represent both the hard core of today's development challenge and a growing source of transnational threats, ranging from terrorism to crime to infectious disease, as I've argued in a previous working paper, Weak States and Global Threats: Assessing Evidence of Spillovers. Q. What is the U.S. doing to respond to fragile states? A: The attacks of 9/11 prompted a decisive shift in U.S. rhetoric toward fragile states. As the president declared at his 2002 National Security Strategy release, "The events of September 11, 2001, taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states. Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders." But beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House has not yet developed a strategy to deal with fragile states, especially before such countries pose major threats to national security. Nor has it put its money where its mouth is. Our analysis of this year's U.S. budget request shows that, if you subtract aid to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan -- as well as HIV/AIDS spending -- total U.S. bilateral aid for the world's 50 most vulnerable countries amounts to little more than one dollar per person per year. I hope that the administration's recent foreign aid reorganization will begin to address this gap between rhetoric and reality. Q. In providing aid to fragile states, how can the U.S. be sure the money is spent effectively and not lost to corruption? A: There's no question that it's tough to spend aid money effectively in fragile states, particularly where host governments are unresponsive or where corruption is endemic. For this reason donors have tended to focus aid on "good performers," through such mechanisms as the Millennium Challenge Account. But we've also learned that it makes no sense, on humanitarian and national security grounds, to write off an entire class of developing countries. There's growing evidence that carefully targeted aid can help build capacity and commitment for reform in fragile states, which might entail working outside formal government or targeting specific sectors such as education. We recommend that U.S. policymakers treat foreign aid in fragile countries as a form of venture capital -- inherently more risky, but liable to have big payoffs. Q. How does the U.S. compare to other donor governments working in fragile states? A: The United States has made some headway. USAID has published its own "fragile states strategy." The State Department has created an office of post-conflict reconstruction. And the foreign aid reform project is meant to promote "effective democratic states" in the developing world. But compared to other donors, the U.S. approach is dominated by security-related concerns, particularly the Department of Defense, at the expense of a government-wide strategy. In contrast, some other donors--notably the United Kingdom--have moved toward a more genuinely "whole of government" approach to fragile states that unites defense, development, and diplomatic actors in a common effort. My colleague Kaysie Brown and I are completing a study on what major donor countries are doing to integrate the "3Ds" (defense, diplomacy and development) in engaging fragile states. Q. What should be done to improve foreign aid in fragile states? A: While engaging in fragile states can be risky, it is now clear that abandoning these countries is not the right answer. At the same time, research on "what works" in fragile states is still in its infancy. To increase our knowledge base, CGD has launched a multi-year initiative on Engaging Fragile States, supported in part by the Australian Agency for International Development (AUSAID). We hope to strengthen donor action in fragile states by answering questions such as: What can be done to promote aid effectiveness in the world's weak and failing states? How can external actors help address the endemic problems of corruption in poorly performing countries, particularly in resource-rich countries? And how can donors increase the coherence of their efforts to help prevent state collapse in the first place, rather than being left to pick up the pieces of yet another failed state?
January 14, 2010
Article
Child Soldiers: Q&A with Uzodinma Iweala, author of...
Uzodinma Iweala, author of a highly acclaimed first novel, Beasts of No Nation, a first-person account of the life of a child soldier in Sierra Leone, read from his novel and discussed its purpose and meaning at a CGD event last week. The audience also watched an excerpt from War Dance, a forthcoming film about former child soldiers in Uganda by filmmaker Sean Fine. (Video of Iweala's reading and a transcript of the discussion with Iweala and Fine are now online.) Afterwards, Iweala answered questions about the book: Q: Why did you write Beasts of No Nation? A: The idea came during my senior year of high school. I flipped open a Newsweek magazine and there was an article about a child soldier in Sierra Leone. I really didn’t know much about what was happening in Sierra Leone or Liberia or some of the other places where child soldiers were being used. I found the idea that a kid that much younger than I was at the time had to fight, wasn’t assured of even whether he would sleep and wake up the next morning so very troubling. I was ignorant and I felt like I wanted and needed to know more about the political and humanitarian issues. Most importantly for me, I wanted to take the issue away from the more intellectual discussions and focus on the emotional component of the story. I didn’t actually write the novel until after meeting a former child soldier. It was the emotions stirred up by face-to-face interaction with a survivor of this terrible phenomenon that got me ready and able to write. Q: When you spoke at the CGD event, several people asked you what could be done to address the problems that give rise to child soldiers. You were reluctant to offer prescriptions. Why? A: There are two reasons. First, I don’t know if I’m qualified. I’m not a policy person (not yet at least) and I don’t have a background in conflict studies or child psychology, so I don’t want to speak outside of my realm of expertise. Second, I think that the book is part of the solution -- raising awareness. I believe that art and literature appeals to a different side of the human intelligence -- the emotional intelligence. I think this very powerful and often underappreciated by action-oriented people. Sometimes one needs to slow down and understand an issue emotionally before prescribing a solution. That is what Beasts of No Nation was for me, and that’s what I hope it will be for those who read it – one part of the solution. I had to slow down emotionally to really try and grasp what it meant to be in the situation of a child soldier before I could say I know now how to respond. I want to be able to help others to do the same. Q: You also watched the excerpt from Sean Fine’s forthcoming film, War Dance, about efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers in Uganda. How do the differences between documentary film and narrative fiction shape the ways in which you and Sean address this difficult topic? A: Fiction allows one to take liberties, leaps of imagination that help to tell the story. In fiction – for me at least – the story is king and the writer’s obligation is to tell the most emotionally affecting story. If it’s fantasy – fine. If it’s historical fiction – fine. If the story holds together and is effective in bringing the reader to a new emotional and intellectual plain, then the writer has done his job. In my mind the documentary film maker is more constrained by the facts of a given situation. If someone is making a documentary about an event in Rwanda – you can’t set it in Russia even if that would make the story that much more emotionally effective. I don’t know if that makes the documentary film more honest than fiction (this is all in the way that one lays out the facts), but it does give it more of an immediate connection to reality. Q: You are from Nigeria but grew up in Washington DC. How did you imagine your way into the mind and heart of a child forced to kill? A: I did my research. I talked to people. I read lots and lots on everything from child psychology to interviews with former child soldiers. And then I sat with that knowledge that I had gathered and just tried to absorb it all. There had to be a period when all I did was to sit and try to absorb. Then I wrote, rewrote and rewrote again until that boy came to life within the context of the story. Q: Hearing you read from Beasts of No Nation was chilling, and reading it is emotionally quite challenging. Was it emotionally difficult for you to write? A: Beasts of No Nation was an incredibly hard book to write. There is nothing more troubling, other than being a victim or an unwilling perpetrator of violence, than spending every waking moment for a year with stories and images of violent actions. I have to say that I was relieved when I finished writing the book.
January 11, 2010
Publication
Peace-Building without External Assistance: Lessons from...
Vijaya Ramachandran

This paper examines how the lack of recognition of Somaliland by the international community—and the consequent ineligibility for foreign financial assistance—has shaped the region's political development. It finds evidence that Somaliland’s ineligibility for foreign aid facilitated the development of accountable political institutions and contributed to the willingness of Somalilanders to engage constructively in the state-building process.

January 4, 2010
Publication
Bases, Bullets, and Ballots: The Effect of U.S. Military...
Suresh Naidu and Oeindrila Dube

Does foreign military assistance strengthen or further weaken fragile states facing internal conflict? In a new working paper, CGD post-doctoral fellow Oeindrila Dube and co-author Suresh Naidu find that U.S. military assistance to Colombia may increase violence and decrease voter turnout, undermining the perceived value of foreign military assistance.

May 19, 2009
Publication
Capital Loss and Corruption: The Example of Nigeria --...
Nuhu Ribadu

CGD visiting fellow Ruhu Ribadu testifies before the House Financial Services Committee about the effects of corruption on democracy, global markets, and the poor in developing countries. He suggests how the United States could help put an end to corrupt practices.

December 1, 2009
Publication
Development Assistance, Institution Building, and Social...
James Fearon, Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein

Previous research on post-conflict reconstruction holds that sustainable institution building is an indigenous process. This paper, however, contributes to a new understanding of small-scale external interventions. Through a randomized field study in Liberia, the authors find that the IRC’s community-driven development projects positively impact social cohesion and democratic decision-making in villages.

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March 27, 2012
Blog Post
Fresh Ideas for New U.S. Ambassador to Haiti
Charles Kenny, Michael Clemens and Vijaya Ramachandran

Update: On March 29, the U.S. Senate confirmed Pamela White to be Ambassador of the United States of America to the Republic of Haiti.

Assuming she is confirmed by the Senate, Pamela White is set to become the next U.S. ambassador to Haiti. In her March 14 confirmation hearing, White and the senators agreed on one message: Haiti’s unstable government is impeding post-earthquake recovery, including U.S. aid efforts. But White could consider alternative approaches—from migration policy to mobile money—that might do more to help Haitians right now.

January 19, 2010
Multimedia
Fragile States: Development in the World’s Basket Cases
January 16, 2010
Article
Haiti: New Terms of Engagement?
Access full speech (pdf 152KB) On February 7th, 2007, Stewart Patrick spoke on a panel at an event sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace entitled “Haiti: No Longer a Failed State?” In his remarks, he offers reflections from his recent visit to Haiti and addresses four main points: The marginal utility of describing Haiti as a “Failed State” The inter-relationship among the main sets of challenges facing Haiti: (a) Security and the Rule of Law; (b) Institutions of Governance; (c) Development, including growth and social welfare The need for donors to end their dysfunctional approach to Haiti, which has kept it a dependent ward of the international community, by embracing state building. The transnational spillovers resulting from Haiti’s endemic state weakness, notably the reciprocal relationship between (a) drug trafficking and (b) Haiti’s insecurity, dysfunctional governance and stalled development.
February 14, 2011
Blog Post
Egypt’s Next Big Challenge: Overcoming Reliance on Rents
Lawrence MacDonald and Arvind Subramanian

After the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last Friday, I invited

January 18, 2012
Blog Post
What the U.S. Can Do in Pakistan Now – Milan Vaishnav and...
Lawrence MacDonald et al.

U.S. - Pakistan relations, troubled in the best of times, have been unusually rocky of late. A recent cover story in The Atlantic dubbed Pakistan the “Ally from Hell.” CGD’s Study Group on the U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan argues that the strong U.S. interest in a stable, prosperous Pakistan makes savvy U.S. support for development there more important than ever. In this week’s wonkcast, post-doctoral research fellow Milan Vaishnav and policy analyst Danny Cutherell discuss the recent upsets in U.S.-Pakistan relations and offer practical suggestions, drawn from the CGD Study Group’s report and a recent open letter from CGD president Nancy Birdsall to deputy secretary of state Thomas Nides, which focuses on U.S. support for private sector growth in Pakistan.

December 4, 2015
Multimedia
Suicide Attacks against Security Forces in the Middle...
September 15, 2006
Blog Post
The World Bank Report on Fragile States: 5 Takeaways
Kaysie Brown

*This post is co-authored by Kaysie Brown The World Bank's Operations Evaluation Division has just released a lengthy report documenting a rise in the world's "fragile states" and drawing a direct connection between state weakness and transnational threats. As Karen DeYoung reports in today's Washington Post, “Fragile" countries, whose deepening poverty puts them at risk from terrorism, armed conflict and epidemic disease, have jumped to 26 from 17 since the report was last issued in 2000. Increased attention to development and stability in fragile states by both the World Bank and the U.S. Government signals the importance of and challenges associated with providing assistance in these critical yet vulnerable states. CGD recently launched the Engaging Fragile States initiative to focus on key unanswered questions for the development community working in these tough environments. A quick read of the Bank report raises a number of issues that our work is focusing on:

October 25, 2010
Blog Post
U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan after the Floods:...
Lawrence MacDonald, Nancy Birdsall and Molly Kinder

As if Pakistan needed more troubles, this summer’s catastrophic flooding stretched the capacity of that country’s civ

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