Fragility and fragile contexts

What?  

Fragility refers primarily to countries in conflict situations or countries that have recently escaped conflict, but the concept is also applied more broadly. Fragility not only refers to countries in conflict or countries facing major security challenges, but also those that are fragile on certain other dimensions. The term is often equated to countries in conflict situations, as these are defined as the most fragile states and contexts.  

Fragile states are characterised by fundamental weaknesses and often have limited capacity, legitimacy, authority and control. They maintain basic functions only to a limited extent.  They often have limited ability to provide services such as healthcare and education, will often have very limited control of their own territory and are unable to ensure the safety of citizens and adequately perform public duties. This means that the population’s confidence in national and local authorities is often low.  

Fragility was previously defined narrowly in terms of fragile states, but not as different degrees of fragility on. In 2016, the OECD presented a new definition of fragility. This definition assesses the degree of fragility based on the ability to manage challenges, risks and crises in five dimensions: national cohesion, political processes and decisions, economy, environment and climate and security. This means that a country can be extremely fragile in one dimension but resilient in another. A state or context may, for example, be extremely fragile in political and social dimensions but only moderately fragile economically and environmentally and only slightly fragile in terms of security.  

The strategic framework for Norwegian efforts in fragile states and contexts applies the OECD definition of fragility.  

Why?  

On a global level, it is estimated that more than half of those living in poverty and 86% of those living in extreme poverty will live in fragile states and contexts by 2030.   There are currently 1.9 billion people living in fragile contexts, which accounts for 24% of the world’s population but 73% of those living in extreme poverty. 

There are 33 least developed countries (LDCs) in sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of which have been defined as fragile by the World Bank, OECD or both. This is also reflected in the Fragile States Index, in which 29 of these LDCs are among the top 61 most fragile states (in a list of a total of 179 states).  Thus the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa are also the most fragile.  

In the past 20 years, the number of people living in countries with war and conflict has increased by more than 1 billion and 2023 was the year with the highest number of armed conflicts ever recorded in the world. Women and children and marginalised groups are particularly vulnerable. 

In 2022, 65% of Norwegian aid was allocated to countries in conflict, compared to less than 25% in 2013.[1] 

How?  

Development cooperation in fragile states is complex and several factors that could affect cooperation should be considered. As donors, we shouldt have a solid contextual understanding of national and local stakeholders, power balances and not least how our funding can influence such contexts. We need to have realistic objectives for what can be achieved within given timeframes and to accept the fact that involvement in fragile states requires a long-term perspective. It is also important to ensure that our support shows a great degree of flexibility in such settings and we need to have a high tolerance for risk. Our support must be conflict-sensitive, i.e. it shouldt not only avoid creating conflict but  also positively affect local or national stability. It is also essential that our support has local ownership and is underpinned by an understanding of changing political will and the fact that local and national authorities may, in some cases, have other primaryinterests other than development cooperation.  

Humanitarian efforts in complex crises have often been characterised by evolving into long-term interventions, even if the intention was short-term interventions. Experience shows that fragility is reduced by improving the interaction between humanitarian efforts and long-term aid.  Efforts in fragile states require long-term approaches. 

Who/where? 

Much of the aid allocated to fragility and stabilisation efforts (see also the stabilisation page) goes via multilateral organisations, including the UN and the AU, as well as the development banks, including the World Bank, and a number of funds aimed at peace, security and stabilisation. Contributions to stakeholders that support women, peace and the security agenda are key and include UN Women and INGOs. But support also includes various programmes to restore capacity in national and local authorities, for example in relation to healthcare, education, tax collection, financial institutions and national ministries and directorates.  

Geographically, this work has a broad span, from the Balkans to sub-Saharan Africa and from Haiti to Afghanistan. 

Links  

saarbar-strategisk-rammeverk-oppdatert120717.pdf (regjeringen.no) 

Fragility, Conflict & Violence (worldbank.org)

States of Fragility | OECD iLibrary (oecd-ilibrary.org) 

States of Fragility 2022 | OECD 

Fragile States Index | The Fund for Peace 

Contact   

For more information,. please contact the Section for Prevention and Stabilisation 

[1] Norad, Tall som Teller , 2024 (“Figures that Count”).