Break it or make it? New approaches to fragile states

“We presume that as a peacebuilding community, what we need to be doing is engaging more politically and ensuring that our interventions are inclusive […]. This inclusive posture is actually conflict-inducing, and it’s precisely at the time there is competition over inclusion that the sparks fly”.

For War and Peace Talk, Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou shares a sneak peek on the OECD’s upcoming 2016 States of Fragility report and its proposal of paradigmatic changes on how donors should engage in fragile states:

”For many peacebuilding-oriented donors, promoting free and fair elections is their contribution to inclusive politics. But actually, we have to be very clear that just investing in that does not necessarily bring the outcome that we intend”.

Nwajiaku-Dahou also touches on the current state of the New Deal and how its emphasis on strengthening state capacities on delivering services and improving aid effectiveness in fragile states played out on the country-level. An unlikely candidate for structural change – Somalia – comes out a winner.

Kathryn Nwajiaku­-Dahou is Head of the OECD’s International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Secretariat.

The interview was recorded in The Hague on April 7, 2016.