Publication

This paper examines how to determine whether a country is a fragile state and provides a new approach to help the development community improve the way it engages with such states. The author first reviews the existing basis upon which state fragility is determined and then reviews how the development community engages with countries with a fragile state status. He then provides his own method of how to determine state fragility - a main element of which is the consideration of the extent to which a state is fragile over time - and discusses its implications for development assistance strategies that deal with fragile states.