States of Fragility 2025

Policy recommendations

Development co-operation must reassert its value as an instrument of international statecraft

The share of Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members’ country-allocable official development assistance (ODA) provided to contexts with high and extreme fragility was the lowest in two decades in 2022 and 2023. The risk-adverse approach of many members of the DAC in these contexts comes at a strategic cost. ODA delivered independently or as a component of foreign policy, is essential for international statecraft in a geopolitical environment where power is shifting, and even contexts with the highest levels of fragility have more agency and choice. Being more competitive means being smarter about building development co-operation and responding not just to the risks associated with fragility but to the specific means of building resilience for the long term.

Conflict prevention is a geopolitical and human security necessity

Striking global trends on conflict and violence point to prevention as a core component of geopolitical strategy, development and peace. Yet direct conflict prevention measures, especially through multilateral institutions, are increasingly starved of resources and upstream structural and systemic conflict prevention measures are rarely applied. This is placing undue burden on defence and security instruments while incentivising the recourse to violence for political and economic objectives, notably in contexts with low institutional resilience. Ignoring conflict prevention is wasting the potential of co-operation and compromising the delivery of development assistance. Reimagining prevention requires adapting analytical frameworks and indicators; making that analysis easier for development actors to access and apply; and sustaining engagement to ensure that drivers of fragility do not become drivers of conflict and violence.

Inclusivity is not enough, so thinking on partnerships must evolve again

Contexts with high to extreme fragility have more partnership options than they did 20 years ago and are exercising their choice, with positive and negative outcomes, increasingly outside the established multilateral system. While this does not herald the end of multilateralism, the substance, design and purpose of future partnerships in those contexts needs to adapt. Being inclusive is not enough when populations in donor countries are sceptical about the value of co-operation, and states with extreme and high fragility expect more from their partnerships on issues of trade, investment, security, energy or migration. Economic partnerships should be considered as strategically important for addressing fragility, and they may provide new entry points for policy dialogue. Mutually accountable partnerships are key for adapting to the increasingly competitive nature of development co-operation in those contexts.

Understanding fragility is at the core of effective strategy for a changing world

Fragility strategies are beginning to prove their worth, most notably across international financial institutions (IFIs), where the broader analytical base – picking up on disruptors from different dimensions, not just the political and economic – drives more tailored responses. As humanitarian, development and peace actors compete to have their agendas respected and implemented, fragility analysis has untapped potential to inform the strategic alignment of development, foreign and security policies by analysing the interplay of risk and resilience across intersecting dimensions. Investing in fragility analysis at subnational levels will help to better understand local and national aspirations in contexts most exposed to fragility.