This study and its associated guidance contribute to advancing thinking and understanding about one of the most significant challenges that the international community faces in fragile contexts: how to provide the right financing.

The paper summarises new and emerging instruments and approaches in financing stability and resilience, and points to some of the gaps and challenges that remain in the fragility, resilience and stability space. It is not intended as holistic policy guidance on “how to” engage effectively across international and domestic, public and private instruments in fragile contexts. Instead, the paper is complemented by separate guidance on financing strategies: approaches to better align financing to support the delivery of results at the country-level.

The research acknowledges that there are many high-level strategic debates which have yet to be resolved, which concern the comparative advantage and future role of Official Development Assistance (ODA) within a more diverse division of labour in financing, as well as a huge range of technical and capacity challenges ahead. The analysis, observations and conclusions put forward in this study should be interpreted therefore as preliminary contributions to what is a live and dynamic process of debate and adaptation.