Failure to deliver basic services is increasingly understood as both a symptom and cause of state fragility. Conflict adversely impacts the coverage and quality of basic services, and this in turn negatively affects human development and economic activity. Supporting basic services can become highly political in situations where there is conflict, instability, inequality and social exclusion.
Since the rise of the state-building agenda, the impetus for donors in supporting service delivery in fragile states is not only meeting basic human needs, but also in building state capacity, reciprocal state-society relations and state legitimacy. Balancing the need to provide essential services at scale and fast whilst also trying to develop state capacity is a critical challenge for aid agencies. Even in failed states or areas of limited statehood, service delivery may be negotiated through some nascent form of state control. In any given context, the degree of state capacity may not correspond with the level of service delivery.
Lee, M., Walter-Drop, G., & Wiesel, J. (2014). Taking the State (Back) Out? Statehood and the Delivery of Collective Goods. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 27(4), 635-654.
A global normative script emphasizes the role of the modern state in providing collective goods and services from security to education to health. This paper analyzes state performance in six dimensions of service delivery in a cross-sectional sample of more than 150 countries. It finds there is remarkably little evidence of a consistent relationship between statehood and service delivery. Service delivery has been admirable in some areas of limited statehood in which the state has very little capacity. There are other polities with much higher state capacity where service delivery has been wanting.
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Titeca, K., & de Herdt, T. (2011). Real Governance Beyond the ‘Failed State’: Negotiating Education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. African Affairs, 110(439), 213-231.
How are state services governed even when the state administration has retreated from the public domain? Failed states are often described as a vacuum of authority, yet although there is often no overall regulatory authority, this does not mean that sectors are ungoverned. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, education delivery is the result of negotiation processes between state and non-state actors. Instead of producing uniform results, this form of regulation depends on power configurations in particular places at particular times.
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Jones, A., & Naylor, R. (2014). The quantitative impact of armed conflict on education: counting the human and financial costs. Reading: CfBT Education Trust.
Attacks on schools are the ‘tip of the iceberg’ when the full extent of armed conflict’s adverse impact on education is taken into account, not least when measured in terms of the millions of children out of school for various reasons in times of insecurity and violence. This report estimates the impact of conflict and insecurity on education in terms of direct and indirect costs, concluding that economic growth is negatively affected in significant ways.
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Carpenter, S., Slater, R., & Mallett, R. (2012). Social protection and basic services in fragile and conflict-affected situations: a global review of the evidence (Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium briefing paper 8). London: Overseas Development Institute. Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium
This review of secondary literature finds that evidence on social protection and service delivery in conflict-affected situations is fairly limited and of variable quality. The claim that there is a causal link between service delivery and state-building is frequently made but rarely evidenced. Gaps remain in the guidance about how to deliver basic services in volatile, low capacity situations, particularly in relation to comparative costs and programme effectiveness.
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SLRC has also released baseline data from surveys of basic services and livelihoods in South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal.
Baird, M. (2010). Service Delivery in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States (World Development Report 2011 Background Paper ). Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
Can the delivery of basic services help to promote lasting stability and peace in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS)? Drawing on 40 case studies, this paper argues that successful delivery of basic services can contribute to broader political legitimacy and stability. Donors, government and non-state actors can provide a virtuous circle of improving services, increasing public expectation and creating greater will to avoid violent conflict. However, to avoid aggravating conflict, service delivery improvements must form part of an informed process of activities that address the inequities created by conflict. A key lesson is to nurture strong leadership that is committed to security, justice and equity.
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For a fuller discussion, see section on service delivery in fragile and conflict affected contexts in the GSDRC’s fragile states guide.
Can service delivery support state-building?
It is widely assumed that better service delivery helps to improve the capacity and legitimacy of fragile and conflict-affected states. Several donors therefore argue that the state should play a visible role in service delivery from as early as possible after conflict. However, recent research has questioned this assumption, highlighting that service delivery can be either a positive or negative force for state-building. Any legitimising effects of delivery may depend on citizens’ expectations and perceptions of procedural fairness and distributive justice in the allocation of services between different social groups. Redistribution rather than absolute improvements may be particularly significant in post-conflict situations where horizontal inequalities prevail.
Practical Action, Save the Children, & CfBT Education Trust. (2011). State-Building, Peace-Building and Service Delivery in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: Literature Review. London: Department for International Development
This review finds that, according to the literature: 1) service delivery can contribute positively and negatively to state-building and peace-building; 2) citizens’ expectations of service delivery vary in different sectors; 3) different types of provision (state versus non-state) may have a different impact on legitimacy through visibility; 4) equitable service delivery is important; and 5) a simultaneous focus on both service delivery and state-building is challenging.
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Wild, L., & Mason, N. (2012). Examining the role of WASH services within peace- and state- building processes: Findings from Tearfund programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of South Sudan. London: Overseas Development Institute.
This research explored the links between Tearfund’s service delivery of water supply, sanitation and hygiene programmes and wider processes of state-building and peace-building in South Sudan and the DRC). The findings challenge assumptions that the delivery of WASH services per se will contribute to positive peace-building and state-building effects.
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Mcloughlin, C. (2014). When Does Service Delivery Improve the Legitimacy of a Fragile or Conflict-Affected State? Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions. Advance online publication.
Received wisdom holds that providing vital public services is likely to enhance state legitimacy. This article finds that in practice, there is no straightforward relationship between how well a state performs in delivering services on the one hand, and its degree of legitimacy on the other. Where citizens do evaluate the state’s right to rule through the services they receive, this evaluation is likely to be affected by a number of intervening factors, including: expectations of what the state should provide; subjective assessments of impartiality and distributive justice; the relational aspects of provision; how easy it is to attribute performance to the state; and the degree to which services are more or less visible to citizens.
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