• Health and the governance agenda
• State-building agenda and health
• The coherence agenda

Health and the governance agenda

Policy makers are increasingly concerned by what appears to be a growing body of “weak”, “fragile”, or “failing” states. However, international actors have not yet adequately incorporated into policies or practice a sufficiently nuanced understanding of the dynamics of fragility and its variations, or developed appropriately contextualised strategies for state building in relation to it. This report seeks to help clarify the discussion of fragility and to examine implications for state building, including as a framework for international engagement.

The central contention of this paper is that fragility arises primarily from weaknesses in the dynamic political process through which citizens’ expectations of the state and state expectations of citizens are reconciled and brought into equilibrium with the state’s capacity to deliver services. Reaching equilibrium in this negotiation over the social contract is the critical if not sole determinant of resilience, and disequilibrium, the determinant of fragility.

It says successful state building will almost always be the product of domestic action, though it can be significantly enabled by well-targeted, responsive international assistance. Deeper, context-specific analysis of the historical and contemporary dynamics of social contract negotiations must be the basis for state-building efforts.

The report identifies a number of implications concerning organisational and financing issues and makes recommendations to bilateral and multilateral institutions. These include:

• there is a need for sustained policy engagement with the major emerging economies and regional actors
• donors need to address weaknesses in the financing for rule of law and justice sector support to fragile states – both at the multilateral and bilateral levels
• donor governments should also engage with their legislative oversight bodies to make the case for a greater emphasis on accountability between the partner government and their societies, rather than on state-donor accountability
• multilateral institutions have substantial comparative advantages in dealing with fragile states, but need to be better equipped to support state-building functions
• the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping should engage in a major reform effort to improve the speed of recruitment, training and retention of civilian personnel for peace operations

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