Fragility, governance and development

An OECD/DAC Discussion Paper written by Patrick Meagher of the IRIS Center/University of Maryland articulated a picture of key concepts, findings and lessons of service delivery in fragile states. While this paper is written in the context of fragile states, the key concepts, findings and lessons find relevance and resonance in our present situation.

There is no consensus on the definition of fragile state. Meagher (2008) points to “fragility” as a reflection of the internal dynamics of the society or it may reflect exogenous factors such as natural disaster or conflict. He identified three characteristics leading to such definition: (1) A fragile state suffer deficit in governance that hinder development; (2) Conditions are too unstable for long-term planning and investment; and (3) the society focusing on near-term coping strategies to secure basic needs.

In the same paper, DAC and other aid agencies defines fragility in terms of the lack of capacity and willingness to perform key government functions for the benefit of its people and society:

Capacity is the ability of the state to mobilize resources for basic services, economic development and poverty reduction. Capacity is seen in terms capability and effectiveness in territorial control and presence, exercise of political power, basic competence in government management, policy implementation and service accountability.

Willingness is the explicit political commitment to policies supporting human welfare. This political commitment is reflected in the actions and outcomes of initiatives and interventions rather than just on the initial expression of support.

Therefore, a fragile state is one where it is unable to perform the basic functions of a state to maintain security (peace, order and rule of law) across its terrain, to enable economic development (absence of long-term economic initiatives) and to ensure other essential needs (education, health, housing, water and sanitation) of its people are met.

There will be arguments for and against labeling our situation as a "fragile state”. But the intention remains to awaken stakeholders and to inform them that prolonged state of fragility can worsen the conditions on the ground and eventually feed into the worst situation of a “collapse state”.

The intention is to generate ideas on how to redress the situation on the ground by going beyond just the argument of lack of financial resources; to situate our argument for reform and development within more objective and broader principles of efficiency, transparency, accountability. Along this line, we also keep in the hindsight of our discussion that institutional reforms and nation-building will be greatly influence and determined by popular engagement.

The bulk of internal mobilization and external development assistance will prove meaningless and counter-productive if the negative aspects of the social and cultural climate prevail and remain uncorrected.

Our belief is that more instances of efficiency, transparency and accountability increases access to and quality of resources (capital, human, system) available either internally or externally. Parallel to this belief is the argument that decreasing instances of efficiency, transparency and accountability in governance and service delivery reduces access and quality of these resources simply because the absence of these instances allow wastage in the utilization of meager state funds, increases tendency for graft and corruption, bloats the state bureaucracy and decreases delivery and quality of basic services and reduces confidence on the state capability to function effectively; eventually, contributing to more instances of poverty, illiteracy, political turmoil, economic marginalization, environmental degradation, human rights violations, ethnic conflict, social unrest and so on, all of these indicative of a fragile state and worse a collapse state.