BY PAULINE H. BAKER, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, FFP An editorial cartoon in the May 27, 2023, edition of The Economist depicted a race about to start with four entrants, each represented by a pretzel-like twisted figure in a state of panic. Onlookers explained it was “a race to determine who’s the most dysfunctional…and all of the […]
Yearly Archives: 2023
Peru – Decades of Progress in Jeopardy
- 05 June 2023
BY MELINDA ELLINGTON Photo by Alex Phillc on Pixabay Peru steadily improved on the Fragile States Index from 2006, with a sharp reduction in poverty,[1] and improvements in literacy,[2] infant mortality,[3] and life expectancy.[4] But against a backdrop of high inequality, since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 the country has veered sharply toward greater fragility, […]
Incentivizing Peace Only Leads to More War in Sudan
- 01 June 2023
By Reem Abbas and Emily Sample Photo by Ammar Nassir on Unsplash Consistently in the top ten most fragile countries, the hope brought by the 2019 coup has since been dampened by the continued cycle of unstable governance. This has escalated even further in 2023 as the tentative alliance between the Sudanese army and the […]
An Elusive Search for Stability in Burkina Faso as France Takes a Big Step Back
- 31 May 2023
By Billy Agwanda Photo by Stijn Swinnen on Unsplash Until 2015, Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African country with a population of 22 million, remained untouched by the array of jihadist groups operating in the Sahel. Prior to 2015, it was even considered to be an ‘island of stability’. Analysts and researchers opined that with […]
Twisting and Turning: Why Fragility Still Matters in a Time of Great Power Competition
- 26 May 2023
BY NATE HAKEN Photo by Michael Afonso on Unsplash After the attacks of 9/11 an uneasy consensus began to emerge among the national security establishment, humanitarian, and international development actors around state fragility as a unified theory and organizing principle by which to develop policy. Institution building and economic development in places like Iraq and […]