Author Archives: FFP Interns

Multidimensional Solutions: The Four D’s of Human Security

BY KRISTA HENDRY Tackling state fragility — once it has been identified by tools such as the Failed States Index (FSI) — is by no means a simple or straightforward task. Nor is it a one-dimensional task that can be undertaken alone. Building a state and society that protects human security requires a multifaceted strategy […]

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No State is an Island: The Importance of a Multisectoral Approach

BY KRISTA HENDRY In the 2013 Failed States Index (FSI), we call attention to the linkages between the underlying causes of state fragility. Essentially, no state is an island, and pressures in one state, no matter how seemingly isolated, often lead to wider destabilization. The pressures that can underlay and lead to conflict are normally […]

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The Recovery of Somalia: Check Back With Us Again Next Year

BY FELIPE UMANA Somalia has been what many would describe as the quintessential “failed state” since the inception of the Failed States Index (FSI). Struggling with an occasionally unforgiving semi-arid topography in much of the North, widespread poverty as a result of tight competition for few resources, and mired by high levels of insecurity, an […]

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Most Improved Country for 2013: Japan

BY SEBASTIAN PAVLOU Japan continues to recover with relative speed from the triple crisis of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant meltdown that devastated the country on March 11, 2011. After the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami tore through the country’s north-eastern coastal communities of Miyagi, Iwatu and Fukushima, at least 20,851 people died or […]

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The Dark Side of State Building: South Sudan

BY NATE HAKEN AND PATRICIA TAFT For sustainable human security, statebuilding is the only endgame. Absent the state, traditional mechanisms and authority structures might indeed manage communal issues, perhaps even better than would the state. Trans-communal issues like environmental degradation, complex humanitarian emergencies, and large scale conflict, however, go beyond the jurisdiction and capacity of […]

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