Debate

Media funding in Afghanistan should assist reconstruction

Comment: Israel’s crucial front

Yet more fragile states


10/2006		  

A voice worth listening to

The number of fragile states is rising. That this is the case five years after 9/11 indicates an international failure of leadership.


[ By Hans Dembowski ]

According to the World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), 26 countries are facing imminent state failure. That figure has risen by more than half since 2003, when the IEG identified 17 “low-income countries under stress”. The latest entry on the IEG’s depressing list is Nigeria, West Africa’s giant in terms of both population and GDP.

The trend is alarming. It is well understood, after all, that fragile statehood is not a mere domestic problem. Of course, the people living in the affected countries suffer most from the absence of law and order, from violence perpetrated by gangs and militias, from extreme poverty and lack of fundamental services. 500 million people today live in fragile states, according to the IEG data. However, these states also spell trouble for the neighbouring countries and for the international community as a whole. Drug smugglers and gun runners cross borders, lootable goods are shipped overseas, and collapsed states serve as bases for spreading violence elsewhere.

The international community has been aware of these dangers for a long time – even before Al Qaida, then an Afghanistan-based network, attacked the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington five years ago. Nonetheless, systemic state failure has not been adequately dealt with as an issue in its own right. Otherwise, the number of affected countries would not be rising.

The IEG points out several things that have gone wrong. Too often, the experts say, donors are short-breathed. Too early withdrawal, for instance, caused new trouble in crisis-affected Haiti. The same is true of Timor Leste. Similarly, the IEG bemoans that donor programmes are often too complex and too ambitious. In this context, Afghanistan is mentioned explicitly.

Indeed, the recent resurgence of the Taliban is among the most depressing world news. Under US leadership and with broad support from the international community, that country had been liberated from the Taliban’s fundamentalist dictatorship. This is where donors set out to prove that they can make development happen. Sadly, they do not seem up to the task. Nor do they act consistently according to their own principles. For instance, country ownership is stressed in all recent multilateral documents. But aid to Afghanistan is still hardly disbursed through that country’s nascent institutions. Donor coordination is an omnipresent buzzword. But in Afghanistan, everyone – including aid agencies from civil society – seems busy doing their own thing. Good governance, it is generally agreed, depends on the rule of law. But in Afghanistan, NATO members were happy to rely on warlord support in the pursuit of terrorists.

One might expect global dangers to prompt the leaders of the G7 to coherent action. But that would be setting the hopes too high. After all, they have not convincingly risen to other global challenges either. In spite of global warming, their measures to protect the climate are meagre and mostly symbolic. In spite of rampant poverty, they have allowed the Doha Round to stall, unwilling to accommodate wishes of weaker WTO members. Ministers in charge of development matters or the environment may wring their hands in despair, and ministers of defence or foreign affairs may empathise – but the governments of rich countries, first of all, pay attention to what immediately worries their electorates.

In the long run, of course, global issues can and will affect local constituencies in North America and Western Europe. But until then, politics is likely to trump policy.

In many ways, the World Bank is a privileged multilateral institution. It has money at its disposal, and enjoys a high reputation with conservative media. For good reason, critics regularly complain that it predominantly reflects the view of its most influential shareholders, the governments of rich countries. Sometimes, however, this bias may be a blessing. Presidents and prime ministers in the world’s most powerful countries are more likely to pay attention to warning calls from experts they trust. The IEG is right in putting state failure high on the agenda. It would be more than welcome if it succeeded in convincing the most important policy-makers of getting serious about development – and of staying engaged over the long run.

Link:
http://www.worldbank.org/ieg/licus/