This paper reflects a study sponsored by the OECD DAC’s International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) on global factors influencing the risk of conflict and fragility. On the basis of expert interviews, a brief literature review and the experience of members of INCAF, it identifies eight ‘global factors’, licit and/or illicit processes operating at the international, regional or cross-border level that influence a state’s risk of fragility and conflict. These eight factors are grouped into three broad categories:
Growth and wealth: Three global economic aspects can lead to uneven growth, creating and exacerbating divisions in society:
- Economic liberalisation policies which have a high likelihood of introducing significant uncertainties, increasing inequality and financial/fiscal risks.
- International barriers to exports, which lead many fragile states to continue to export low-value goods.
- The effect of aid on post-conflict growth. Aid can increase growth, but must be balanced against other sources of revenue.
Meaning and movement: Ease of movement for people and ideas allow for new forms of cooperation, which can be beneficial, but also allow for illegal actors to operate in more complex ways and facilitate the spread of pernicious ideas:
- The spread of radical Islam in parts of the Sahel region, which has delegitimised state institutions and local cultural and religious pracitces.
- Migration between fragile states. With political will and careful regulatory control it may be possible to support migration as a development strategy.
Violence and security: Globalisation has made it easier to mobilise and ‘trade’ in violence:
- Transnational organised crime piggy-backs on globalisation to connect global supply and demand for illicit goods and services.
- The international market in military goods and security services can enable states to provide security for their citizens more effectively. However, irresponsible actors can use these services in ways which increase conflict and fragility.
- International engagement with non-state armed groups has been rather simplistic and confused, with all such groups labelled as terrorists. International actors need to be more balanced in assessing the different types, roles, and levels of legitimacy of non-state armed groups.
