This conference organised by The Cordoba Foundation and The Sharq Forum reviewed and examined the achievements and failures of a decade’s long intervention in Iraq by Western-led forces and regional powers. Eva Svoboda chaired a session on "The humanitarian costs of the last decade in Iraq".
This paper explores the link between donor aid and recipient budgets, and the role that greater transparency and clearer information about aid can play in improving budget transparency, the quality of budgetary decisions and accountability systems in developing countries.
A summary of initial findings from an ongoing review of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will include a set of league tables. The key message is that progress is possible, with a number of countries making real achievements.
A renewed donor interest in stabilising countries affected by political violence, armed conflict and chronic poverty – so-called fragile states – should come as a welcome development to humanitarians who have long complained of the indifference shown to large-scale human suffering in these contexts. In some places, at least, it could mean that humanitarian assistance is no longer used for ‘moral absolution' in the absence of serious political commitment to protecting civilians.
Kaplan brings a fresh, if not entirely new, perspective to the discussion on fragile states that has, to a large extent, been missing in international development debates.
