Afghanistan: How can international donors collaborate with recipient countries to greater effect? Source:
Magnum Photos/Christopher Anderson
'Aid systems and local systems should be harmonised. Aid is often inappropriate and not sustained. One result is that 50% of all peace agreements fail'
Ashraf Ghani, Chair of Kabul University and former Finance Minister of Afghanistan speaking at ODI.
Relevant 2006 Annual Report pages PDF>
Report
- Donors and the ‘Fragile States’ Agenda: A Survey of Current Thinking and Practice by Diana Cammack, Dinah McLeod, Alina Rocha Menocal with Karin Christiansen. PDF>
Opinions
- Rethinking nation-building by Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, January 2006. PDF>
- Closing the sovereignty gap: How to turn failed states into capable ones by Ashraf Ghani, Clare Lockhart and Michael Carnahan, July 2005 . PDF>
Working Papers
- (Re)building developmental states: From theory to practice by Verena Fritz and Alina Rocha Menocal, September 2006. PDF>
- Closing the sovereignty gap: An approach to state-building by Ashraf Ghani, Clare Lockhart and Michael Carnahan. September 2005. PDF>
- What's next in international development? Joint ODI/APGOOD meeting series (2006-2007) ' Leading or managing globalisation: towards a rule-based system'
Speaker: Ashraf Ghani, Chair of Kabul University and former Finance Minister of Afghanistan, March 2006. More>
- (Re)building the developmental state. An ODI meeting series (Jan-June 2006) More>
- Six approaches to fragile states by Simon Maxwell, January 2006. Blog>
- Making poverty history - the state as the missing link by Clare Lockhart, August 2005. Blog>
By Clare Lockhart, ODI Research Fellow, Simon Maxwell, ODI Director
Two sets of issues intersect forcefully in so-called 'fragile states': on the one hand, poor governance and the need to build better functioning, 'developmental' states; on the other hand, the policies and behaviour of aid donors. In the best case, aid donors are able to work together and make sustained contributions to recovery and development in conflict, post-conflict or otherwise weak states. In the worst, and depressingly familiar case, the reverse is true: aid can be positively unhelpful to the long-term project. Poor performance matters: fragile states contain 14% of the world's population and a third of all the world's poor.
ODI research has illuminated both faces of this particular coin, and has begun to map a way forward. From the perspective of donors, as Diana Cammack has argued, short-term humanitarian and developmental objectives are deeply enmeshed in wider strategic and security concerns.
The term 'fragile states' is applied to many different situations, partly reflecting rich country preoccupations, which in turn are mapped onto the many governmental and non-governmental bodies engaged on the ground - military, private sector security, bilateral and multilateral aid agencies and NGOs among them.
From the perspective of recipients, the result is an incoherent melange of interventions that often by-passes key state actors. Afghanistan has become a classic example, as Ashraf Ghani (see resources below) and ODI researchers have shown. Why was it, for example, that the consolidated appeal asked for US$1.6 billion for donor activity to be channelled through parallel organisations set up for the purpose and initially only $20 million to enable the government to function? And is it any surprise that donors and NGOs poached so many of the best people, often to work in lesser jobs at multiples of their former civil service salaries?
ODI researchers and their collaborators have argued strongly that the way forward is a primary focus on state-building as the goal of international and national agents. Our work with Ashraf Ghani and Michael Carnahan has proposed a framework (see resourced below) for analysing state functions using a state-effectiveness index and a number of diagnostic and policy tools. We have called for long-term compacts between governments and their donors. We are now applying the framework in countries including Afghanistan, Sudan and Nepal, as well as in disaster relief contexts.
Meanwhile, Karin Christiansen and others at ODI have focused on immediate donor behaviour, modifying tenets from the Paris agenda on harmonisation and alignment to fit the case of fragile states: 'shadow systems alignment' is the key phrase.
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