Aid to fragile states: do donors help or hinder?

This paper examines the relationship between state failure and development assistance. It begins by looking at poor development performance as a criterion for state failure and then examines common causes why states fail, looking in particular at the cases of Burma, Rwanda and Zambia. The author argues that donors much be strongly engaged in fragile states in order to build political accountability and institutional capacity, including in cases where fragile states lack political will. It is argued that, in cases of conflict, donors have often undermined state capacity and failed to intervene properly, both during and following conflict.

The paper makes the following recommendations on how donors should engage fragile states:

• donors should treat every case as unique
• state capacity building must include social, economic, political and security dimensions
• donors should ‘build up’ existing state capacity and not undermine capacity through ‘gap filling’
• donors outside and within the multilateral system should only provide grants to fragile states and refrain from imposing their agendas in the form of conditionality
• donor engagement with fragile states should be mediated through multilateral means
• increasing donor harmonisation and coordination with nationally-driven development agendas
• donor resources need to be secured in the long-term
• donor engagement with fragile states cannot just be about aid but must encompass the total bilateral relationship.