Small is beautiful, but fragile in the Pacific by, Patrick Safran

The presence of violent conflict in a country is often a major red flag for the development community. One good example is Afghanistan that appears in four clusters (violence, justice, resilience, and economics foundations) in the OECD States of Fragility 2015 report. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has very well learned its lesson on the need to apply a conflict-sensitive approach to operations in Afghanistan by using risk assessments, security measures, special financing policies, and flexible procedures in development programs and projects.

Modelling fragility: Stepping towards universality, by Thomas Wheeler

The universal focus and more nuanced conceptualisation of the OECD’s new states of fragility model is to be welcomed, says Thomas Wheeler. But we should remember improved aid flows are only one part of the solution to highly complex problems

Measuring subnational conflict to achieve SDG16, by Cyrel SAN GABRIEL

Economic and political stability of a country can be measured by how peaceful it is as a whole. Subnational conflict, however, takes place in certain remote areas and is often overlooked by the development community’s peace filters and fragility assessments. But failing to adjust the peace lens to a subnational level may hamper efforts toward meeting Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG16) on achieving just, peaceful and inclusive societies.

Modeling Fragility: A Societal and Institutional Approach, by Seth KAPLAN

The OCED is trying to build a model to better analyze fragility. This is admirable, but also risky. Past attempts to model fragility—such as the Fragile States Index (FSI)—have done more harm than good and I wonder whether no model would be better than another model based on misconceptions.The danger of focusing on what’s measurable

Violence and fragility, by Håvard Mokleiv Nygård

Violence and fragility are so closely interlinked that they are essentially two sides of the same coin. Fragile countries see more violence, and violent countries are the most fragile. In any year over the last decade, 25-30 countries in the world have experienced internal armed conflict. These conflicts disproportionally occur in a group of about 50 countries, or in “the bottom billion” population of the world. These 50 countries would appear at the top of any ranking of the world’s most fragile countries.

Actionable insight requires analysis of causes rather than conditions, by Brian GANSON

Measurement, to be useful, must be actionable. The OECD fragility concept and other fragility measures, however, invite donors and development actors to treat symptoms rather than causes. The often poor and even perverse results from international programming to reduce fragility are therefore predictable. Only when our data collection and analysis help us to get a grip on the power relationships and institutional arrangements that reinforce - rather than address - fragility in a particular context will we be able to more dependably help effect positive change.

Fragility of Societies: Putting Societal Dynamics at the centre of the Analysis, by Benjamin PETRINI

The multidimensional approach to fragility in the OECD States of Fragility 2015 report is a welcome step forward towards a more nuanced understanding of the causes and dynamics of fragility itself. It brings us one step closer to devising better policies to minimize the toll that fragility exacts on institutions, economies and societies at large. By singling out five discrete “lenses” of fragility (i.e. levels of violence, access to justice, the quality and functioning of institutions, economic foundations, and resilience to shocks), the new model is able to better identify those diverse dimensions of fragility and categorize countries according to the challenges they face – rather than simply dividing the world into fragile and non-fragile countries.

Bringing us back to the larger questions; why do we need a revised model for assessing fragility and what would it need to look like?, by Frauke de Weijer

In an earlier blog I wrote about my discomfort around the indicators used in the proposed new model for assessing fragility. In hindsight I feel that this was the easy way out, as these are much easier to comment on than the larger questions surrounding this report. Now that a series of consultations are planned, I would like to take us back to these bigger questions. Do we need a revised model for assessing fragility, and what would it need to look like?

Crowd sourcing models of fragility, by Jolanda PROFOS

The OECD’s new report States of Fragility 2015: Meeting Post-2015 Ambitions addresses the substantial challenges of defining – and classifying – fragility. The report proposes a multidimensional approach to the concept of `fragility’, rather than using a simple one-dimensional list. It argues that breaking down concepts of fragility into various dimensions can enable better understanding of the causes and drivers of fragility, thereby informing a better response.

Read the full article on the 'OECD Insights' blog here