What lessons can be learned from donor engagement in fragile situations? This report from DFID reviews the literature on donor interventions in fragile situations and finds that donors are struggling with many of the same problems they face in other developing country contexts, only amplified by the unique features of fragile settings. It recommends that donors continue in their recent efforts to adopt differentiated assistance packages to better engage with fragile states.
Donors are still at a relatively early stage in articulating approaches for effective aid in fragile states. Given the considerable variation across contexts, donors have tried to refine their strategies by distinguishing among different groups of fragile states. There is still considerable divergence among donors on these categories, however, and it is unclear what purpose they serve for policy design.
Donors are also struggling with selection and sequencing problems in dealing with fragile states. While there is consensus that in-depth analysis is required prior to any intervention, the practical application remains more difficult. Moreover, the multiple donor environments that often characterise fragile settings further complicate attempts to sequence or prioritise assistance. Donor assistance and its consequent problems in fragile situations generally fall into one of the following categories:
- Capacity building: While critical to state-building programmes, technical assistance has often been criticised for being insufficiently locally-oriented, too short in duration, and at times counterproductive.
- Service delivery: In fragile situations, the restoration of services requires a significant element of non-state delivery, creating the dilemma of how to maximise both service delivery and state-building objectives.
- Community-based approaches: Involving communities in post-conflict settings in the allocation of resources is an effective means of targeting resources and rebuilding social capital, but the process can be slow, uneven, and prone to elite capture.
- Partnerships: All aid has a political impact, strengthening the hand of some groups in society relative to others – these effects are likely to be more pronounced in fragile states, making the selection of partners all the more critical
Innovative and flexible programme design, based on sound analysis of context, is fundamental to effective aid in fragile situations. Achieving this responsiveness, however, is challenging. The selection of funding mechanisms for donors is often limited, and the need to align strategies has higher priority in fragile states, because government leadership is weaker and the unintended consequences of poorly aligned aid practices are more extreme.
Many donors have come to realise that providing effective aid in fragile states may require specific procedures and organisational arrangements. Some general principles to guide donors when engaging in fragile situations include:
- The length of engagement should be appropriate to the challenges involved – donors need to find a balance between short-term impact and supporting long-term change.
- Donors must be committed to finding home-grown solutions to institutional problems, and not seek to impose institutional templates – projects should work with the capacity that exists, however modest.
- Programming should focus on sources of fragility, such as the unfair distribution of services and economic opportunities across social groups.
- The general principles of aid-effectiveness are relevant in fragile states, but donors must also be innovative and flexible, with a willingness to adjust rapidly to changing circumstances.
- Donors should be constantly aware of the political impact of external assistance, and its potential to create both positive and negative incentives for state-building and conflict reduction.
