Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World - Book Launch and Discussion with Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart

In the wake of the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart were responsible (with Lakhdar Brahimi) for the creation of the Bonn Agreement and the country’s successful Interim and Transitional Administrations. They are now applying their state-building Framework to numerous situations including Kosovo, Liberia, Southern Sudan, Nepal, Lebanon, and Haiti. Their Institute for State Effectiveness is based in Washington DC.

‘Failed States’ – the home of the world’s so-called Bottom Billion – are largely beyond the help of traditional aid and development. Leadership is corrupt, social institutions are virtually non-existent; aid money disappears before it can be used; ethnic conflict, absolute poverty, terrorism, and trafficking hold sway. International approaches to date - whether humanitarian, aid or military, have rarely proven successful.

Ghani and Lockhart’s Framework rebuilds from the ground up, putting finances, democratic accountability, and know-how into the hands of those who are most motivated to make it work – ordinary citizens. Instead of relying on the aid bureaucracies that were designed for a bygone era, their Framework links countries to different networks of knowledge, information and financing in the global system. The grass-roots approach proves to be a catalyst for rebuilding national governments.

This event will launch the first full account of the new framework for reconstruction which is proving powerfully effective in the world’s most fragile and damaged states.

Ashraf Ghani served as Afghanistan’s Finance Minister, and Clare Lockhart as Chief Adviser to the Afghan Government. Ghani has also received nominations for the posts of Secretary General of the United Nations, and head of the World Bank.