Turnarounds in Fragile States

The Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University in the UK recently completed a body of research entitled ‘Turnarounds in Fragile States' that focuses on the attributes and effectiveness of donor-supported programs and projects that worked well under difficult conditions in fragile states.

The research is divided into two parts, of which one deals with country studies: Afghanistan , Cambodia , Mozambique , Timor Leste and Uganda . This part of the study analyses data concerning policy performance and human development outcomes in a broad sample of low income countries in order to identify the direction of change in each country and to establish which countries could fall into or exit the LICUS group. It also analyzes the combination and sequencing of reform in all countries that exited the LICUS group to identify whether a pattern is evident. This part of the study will be published by IDS  as part of the IDS bulletin series. Please click here to see the IDS Bulletin website.

The second part of the study, entitled 'Aid that works: successful development in fragile states' focuses on project level case studies. The cases show that development initiatives which engage local communities and local level governments are often able to have significant impact. However, for more substantial improvements to take place, localized gains need to be scaled up either horizontally (other localities) or vertically (to higher levels). Given the advantages of working at the local level and the difficulty of working through mainstream bureaucratic agencies at higher levels in these countries, donors often prefer to create ‘parallel-agencies’ to reach out to larger numbers of beneficiaries. However, this may in the long run weaken the legitimacy of mainstream government institutions, and donor agencies may therefore choose to work as closely as possible with government officials from the beginning to build trust and demonstrating that new initiatives are non-threatening and help prepare the eventual mainstreaming of ‘parallel agencies’. The results of this research are also available below:

The full study will be published by the World Bank as part of the directions in development series in summer 2006 in a volume entitled 'Aid that works: successful development in fragile states.'

An event entitled 'Social Funds in LICUS contexts: Experiences and Operational Lessons'  took place on April 26th, 2005 to showcase some of this research and provoke further thinking on the role of community-based projects in fragile states. To read details of the workshop please click here. To read a summary of the workshop, please click here.

For more information please contact Annette Leith