New thinking on the nature of fragility and risk shows a shift from a one-dimensional understanding of fragility towards a more holistic approach in which degrees of fragility exist on a spectrum. This approach recognises the need for collaborative, regional and global solutions to tackle the...

This second volume of the Partnership for Democratic Governance Series investigates whether ‘contracting out’ core government functions and services has been conducive to capacity development. Each case study discusses the evidence and emerging lessons of contracting out in fragile and...

By 2015, half of the world’s people living on less than USD 1.25 a day will be in fragile states. While poverty has decreased globally, progress on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1 is slower in fragile states than in other developing countries. Fragile states are also off-track to meet the...

From the anarchy of Somalia to the relative stability of Nepal, fragile and transitional situations represent a broad spectrum of contexts. However, they share some common features: these are risky environments – for the people who live there, for their governments, for neighbouring countries,...

What worries people across Latin America, North America, Israel and Europe? How do attitudes towards governments’ provision of social protection differ cross-nationally? A collaboration between the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Latin American Public...

Conflicts in North and West Africa have become more violent and widespread than in the past. They have also become more difficult to resolve due to the complex relationships between a growing number of belligerents with diverging agendas. Building on a dataset of more than 36 000 violent events...