Category Archives: People

A Tough Neighborhood: Kenya Weathers Regional Instability

BY PATRICIA TAFT AND KENDALL LAWRENCE Long considered an anchor of relative stability in East Africa, Kenya is considered to be one of the strongest emerging markets in Africa. Despite significant pressures, their economy continues impressive growth, with the World Bank projecting continued gains over the next few years. Kenya has also made significant gains […]

Read more ...

Crumbling Roads and a Health Crisis: West Africa Confronts Ebola

BY PATRICIA TAFT In December 2013 in a tiny village in Guinea, a young child fell ill and died of a disease that would come to define much of the news in 2014. The Ebola virus, previously only known in Central and East Africa, laid ravage to large swaths of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, […]

Read more ...

Beating the Odds: Nigeria Defies Predictions of Doom

BY NATE HAKEN The world is not deterministic. People have a say. If ever there was any doubt, Nigeria belied that notion with elections in March and April of this year in which the sky did not fall as just about everybody feared it might. Yes, there were reports of rigging and violence at various […]

Read more ...

Arab Spring Turns to Winter for Much of Middle East, North Africa

BY FELIPE UMAÑA Only a few years ago, much of the Fragile States Index analysis was following the aftermath of the Arab Spring. At the time, there was significant hope for the future, as the despotic regime of Muammar Gaddafi fell in Libya, similarly undemocratic regimes collapsed in Egypt and Tunisia, and other countries hastily […]

Read more ...

Widespread Violence and Insecurity Strikes the Central African Republic

BY NAKE HAKEN AND HANNAH BLYTH The Central African Republic (CAR) is a vast, beautiful land about the size of Texas, but with a fraction of its population. It is home to sprawling herds of forest elephants roaming the Dzanga-Ndoki national park along the Sangha River. Logging towns have sprung up where Muslim merchants sell […]

Read more ...

Springtime for Castro and Cuba; Winter for Ukraine and Libya

BY J.J. MESSNER AND HANNAH BLYTH South Sudan has topped the Fragile States Index for the second year in succession, as the country continues to be wracked by internal conflict, fractious politics, and poverty. South Sudan is joined at the most fragile end of the Index by countries that have long struggled, such as Somalia, […]

Read more ...

Fragile States Index 2015: The Book

BY J. J. MESSNER, NATE HAKEN, PATRICIA TAFT, HANNAH BLYTH, KENDALL LAWRENCE, SEBASTIAN PAVLOU, FELIPE UMAÑA The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink […]

Read more ...

Violence Affecting Women and Girls Monthly Memo – April 2015

This memo covers the month of April 2015 (data coding and uploading lags by a month) for Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta.

Read more ...

How Renewable Energy Can Learn from the Carbon-Based Energy Sector

BY HANNAH BLYTH and J.J. MESSNER On Monday, the leaders of the G7 made clear that our future will strongly be based on clean energy. In their meeting in the Bavarian Alps, the world’s largest industrialized economies pledged to dramatically reduce or altogether eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century, a commitment […]

Read more ...

Violence Affecting Women and Girls Monthly Memo – March 2015

This memo covers the month of March 2015 (data coding and uploading lags by a month) for the eight NSRP States: Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta.

Read more ...