This chapter presents the main findings from the 2025 edition of the OECD multidimensional fragility framework, including the state of global fragility and the key characteristics of the 61 contexts experiencing high or extreme fragility. The analysis identifies the most pertinent trends to consider for humanitarian, development and peace actions, highlighting fragility trends related to politics, violence, economics and how they impact on issues such as inequality, food insecurity and forced displacement.
States of Fragility 2025
Abstract
The state of fragility in 2025
All 177 contexts analysed by the OECD multidimensional fragility framework are exposed to some level of fragility, but 43 are identified as experiencing high fragility and 18 as experiencing extreme fragility. These 61 contexts are the main focus of this report.
Political polarisation, increasing financing needs and data gaps are severely undermining the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. No context with high or extreme fragility is on track to achieve critical Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to peace, hunger, health and gender equality.
Negative trends related to security, political and economic dimensions are most prominent. These trends are closely connected to rising inequality, poverty, food insecurity and forced displacement. Contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility are home to 25% of the world’s population but 72% of the world’s extreme poor. By 2040, 92% of the world’s extreme poor could be living in contexts with high or extreme fragility, according to calculations for this report.
Many types of economies experience high and extreme fragility, including more middle-income contexts (34) than low-income contexts (26). The higher the level of fragility, the harder the recovery has been from the pandemic, with median per capita growth stabilising around 2% for contexts facing high fragility, and negative median growth for contexts facing extreme fragility. In 2023, such contexts received less than 5% of global net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, though they are home to one-quarter of the world’s population.
Violent conflict is highly concentrated in contexts with high and extreme fragility. In 2023, 27 of the 61 contexts with high and extreme fragility were affected by organised violence. At least 1 of the participants in 47 of the 59 state-based armed conflicts was a context with high or extreme fragility.
Recent gains on gender equality are exposed to multiple threats. Eight of the ten contexts with the widest gender gaps are exposed to high and extreme fragility. Negative trends on gender equality and violence against women and girls are associated with democratic backsliding, as many leaders of autocratic and autocratising contexts instrumentalise gender issues for political objectives, curtailing women’s rights.
Contexts with high and extreme fragility generate and host the majority of the world’s forcibly displaced. Over 100 million refugees and internally displaced persons originate in contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, representing almost four fifths of all forcibly displaced persons worldwide.
Previous States of Fragility reports have pointed to a now missed critical juncture in delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2020) giving way to an age of crises (2022) propelled by the global systemic shocks of COVID-19, climate change and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In 2025, the findings from the OECD multidimensional fragility framework substantiate the assessment of Chapter 1 of a world in flux, where all contexts experience some level of fragility. (Infographic 2.1). However, the concentration of fragility among contexts with the least capacity to cope is an established trend; 43 of the 177 contexts analysed are identified as exposed to high fragility and 18 to extreme fragility.1 In 2025, 2.1 billion people were living in these 61 contexts, representing 25% of the world’s population. Yet they accounted for 72% of the world’s extreme poor in 2024. By 2040, 92% of the world’s extreme poor could live in contexts with high or extreme fragility, according to projections prepared for this report.
As shown in Figure 2.1, global fragility has increased moderately overall. Fragility in contexts with extreme exposure has increased the most, though a notable increase is also observed among those contexts not eligible for official development assistance (ODA) with medium to low fragility. While the non-ODA-eligible contexts have greater resilience than contexts in the high and extreme categories, the trend of increasing fragility is a reflection of political tensions and rising discontent around economic pressures like inflation.
The gaps between those with the most and least exposure continue to grow (Figure 2.1), reflecting trends associated with poverty and inequality that are analysed in more detail elsewhere in the chapter. The widening gaps also show that the global recovery since COVID-19 has not extended equally to all contexts.
Note: Each coloured line represents a population-weighted mean of the fragility score of the contexts within each category. In 2023, 18 were exposed to extreme fragility, 43 to high fragility, and 116 to medium to low fragility (ODA and non-ODA eligible). The graph in the left panel shows fragility scores rescaled from 0 to 100 (least to most); the graph in the right panel shows the relative evolution of fragility for each category starting from 0 in 2015.
Source: UN DESA (2024[1]), 2024 Revision of World Population Prospects (database), https://population.un.org/wpp/.
The ability to track exposure to sources of risk and resilience over longer periods of time has substantially enhanced the understanding of both the drivers of fragility and its implications. The OECD fragility framework was created in 2015, the same year that the SDGs were launched. Since then, fragility has been persistently high among a specific set of contexts (Figure 2.1). Of the 56 contexts identified with the first application of the fragility framework in 2016, 50 continue to be exposed to high and extreme fragility. Yet, this apparent stasis masks significant dynamism. Box 2.1 reviews some of the nuances behind the trends.
Exposure to fragility has decreased the most since 2015 (noting that all contexts started from a different baseline) in Timor-Leste, Maldives, The Gambia, Armenia, Qatar and the Republic of Moldova; many of the contexts with decreased fragility have recently democratised. Conversely, exposure to fragility increased the most in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Syria, Myanmar and Nicaragua.
Increasing fragility is a global phenomenon
Fragility has increased since the introduction of the fragility framework particularly in the security, political and economic dimensions. Reflecting the increasing incidence of multiple forms of violence, fragility in the security dimension has increased in 93 out of 177 contexts. Political and societal fragility have increased in 107 of the contexts, driven by the third wave of autocratisation. Fragility in the economic dimension also has increased in more than half, or 94, of the contexts. Though the overall trends associated with environmental fragility have remained relatively static, there are several examples of increasing environmental fragility concentrated at a regional level, such as in the Middle East and the Sahel.
Decreases in human fragility suggest there is potential for positive returns from development co-operation
Fragility in the human dimension has decreased across 135 out of 177 contexts since 2015. The contexts with the greatest improvement are Sierra Leone, Iraq (though it is still exposed to extreme fragility), Nigeria and Bangladesh. In contrast, human fragility has increased the most in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Venezuela and Libya. Interestingly, Venezuela has also experienced protracted humanitarian needs while Libya has been enmeshed in a civil war; both are highly dependent on natural resource revenues (oil), and both face political pressures (civil war for Libya and a macroeconomic crisis for Venezuela).
Every fragility profile continues to feature a unique presentation of risk and resilience
Though security fragility has decreased in Libya and Syria (in each case departing from a high baseline), it intersects with other dimensions of fragility, especially political and societal, pointing to a situation of negative peace in both contexts that could easily fall apart. The overthrow of the Baathist regime in Syria at the end of 2024 is a recent illustration. In Afghanistan, the transition from armed conflict to peace led to lower security fragility but greater societal fragility particularly due to increased fragility for women and girls.
Conflicts in Ethiopia, Sudan and Ukraine explain their increased security fragility since 2015. But Ukraine stands apart due to its significant resilience across multiple dimensions, and its overall exposure to fragility, despite three years of conventional warfare on its territory, is still classified as medium to low. This assessment also reflects the sustained commitment of OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members to ensure Ukraine’s resilience since the escalation of Russia’s armed aggression in 2022. By contrast, regional conflict and the impact of a sustained economic crisis have increased Lebanon’s fragility despite its significant resilience for much of the period since 2015. Another example of a context-specific fragility profile is Haiti, where organised criminal violence and lack of resilient capacities at the state level, reflected in its severe exposure to societal and human fragility, have increased security fragility since 2015.
Note: The human dimension of fragility was added in States of Fragility 2022, but historical data is available.
The global shocks identified in the 2022 States of Fragility report – the systemic impact of COVID-19, the political and economic effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ongoing effects of accelerating climate change – continue to leave their mark. But their impacts have since been compounded by a series of diverse regional shocks such as conflict across the Middle East, Myanmar, Sudan and the Sahel. The shocks from these events will continue to be felt most acutely in contexts with high and extreme fragility, exacerbating existing risks and further undermining already weak sources of resilience (Figure 2.2).
Climate change offers a particularly stark illustration. While its impacts are unevenly distributed, it is clearly compounding regional drivers of fragility in the Sahel and Middle East as politics, economies and societies struggle to adapt to the pressing realities of desertification, water scarcity, flooding, droughts and heat waves. The most visible impact of these combinations of fragility can be seen in the skyrocketing number of displaced persons, mostly driven by conflict, and the record demand for humanitarian assistance. As 2025 began, the United Nations (UN) anticipated that 305.1 million people would need humanitarian assistance and protection due to climate emergencies, conflicts and other crises (UN OCHA, 2024[2]). Moreover, approximately 91% of people in need of assistance or protection were living in contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility; most of the remaining live in Ukraine (exposed to severe security fragility) and contexts in Latin America including in Central America (mainly El Salvador and Honduras). Reflecting the scale of the challenge, the UN and partner organisations appealed for USD 47.4 billion to assist 189.5 million people across 72 countries in 2025 (UN OCHA, 2024, pp. 7-8[2]).
Note: For further information on the methodology for clustering contexts according to their degree of fragility, see https://www3.compareyourcountry.org/states-of-fragility.The colours of the clustering are made according to the severity of fragility for the 61 contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility. They correspond to the shades of the snail from darker shades (more fragile) to lighter shades (less fragile).
The OECD multidimensional fragility framework, depicted in Infographic 2.2, offers unique insight into the diversity of characteristics across all dimensions of fragility among the 61 contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility. The different shadings of the colours used for dimensions represent various degrees of severity of fragility experienced in each context in a particular dimension. By showcasing this diversity, the framework helps reconcile the complexity of fragility with the simplicity needed to guide effective and differentiated action in every context.
Note: For more information on the methodology for the OECD’s multidimensional fragility framework, please see the methodological notes found in Annex A.
Among the 61 contexts with high and extreme fragility, 29 contexts were assessed as experiencing decreasing fragility with 32 contexts experiencing increasing fragility. In contrast to previous editions of this report, no context has moved away from the extreme fragility category.
Three contexts moved from high fragility to extreme exposure to fragility
Cameroon, Libya and Madagascar moved to extreme exposure to fragility:
Cameroon has extreme exposure to fragility, reflecting severe societal, political and human fragility. Most notably, this reflects the deterioration of its education sector alongside high environmental fragility (dwindling food and water resources) and security fragility (driven by the ongoing crisis in the Lake Chad Basin).
Libya was on the cusp of being classified as exposed to extreme fragility in 2022. It has now entered this category due to deterioration across multiple dimensions of fragility, including exposure to severe societal fragility and to high security, political, human and environmental fragility. Its points of economic resilience were insufficient to counterbalance the overall increase in fragility.
Madagascar shifted to extreme exposure to fragility based on its exposure to severe human, environmental and societal fragility and to high political fragility. Environmental fragility has especially increased significantly since the 2022 fragility framework assessment. Madagascar is the fourth most climate change-affected country in the world (UN, 2024[3]) and one of the few megadiverse countries that is home to a high percentage of the world’s biodiversity.
Three contexts moved from high fragility to medium to low exposure to fragility
Benin, Honduras and Lesotho, three contexts that have sustained high fragility since 2015, moved towards medium to low exposure to fragility in this edition of States of Fragility.
Benin experiences moderate levels of societal, political and environmental fragility, low economic fragility, but severe human fragility. Since the last States of Fragility report, fragility has slightly diminished in the environmental, political and societal dimensions. Benin has tended to be classified as between high exposure to fragility and medium to low exposure to fragility (as is also the case for Malawi and Timor-Leste).
Honduras moved towards medium to low fragility thanks first and foremost to improvements in the political dimension (i.e. change of government in 2022) and also to changes in the societal dimension. However, fragility in the security dimension increased, as Honduras was under a state of emergency for much of 2023 in an attempt to emulate security gains achieved by El Salvador (InSight Crime, 2024[4]).
Lesotho moved towards medium to low fragility exposure through improvements in the political, environmental and economic dimensions. However, a recent increase in food insecurity and the El Niño-induced drought suggest these gains could be short-lived (World Vision, 2024[5]). Lesotho also remains exposed to high economic, environmental and human fragility.
Four contexts moved from medium to low fragility towards high exposure to fragility
Gabon, Lebanon, Malawi and Rwanda became exposed to high fragility in 2025:
Gabon showed deteriorations in the security and human dimensions and is characterised by severe human fragility as well as high political and economic fragility.
Lebanon is experiencing severe economic fragility as well as high security, political and environmental fragility. There was a noticeable increase in economic and security fragility, likely the result of myriad interconnected crises including the country’s public debt default, its rising poverty rate and the Beirut port explosion. The most recent data do not capture developments that took place in 2024.
Malawi shifted to high fragility exposure, with deteriorations across the environmental, political, economic and societal dimensions. It is exposed to severe human fragility as well as high economic and environmental fragility. Malawi has tended to be classified between high exposure and medium to low exposure to fragility.
Rwanda is exposed to high fragility, mainly due to deteriorations in societal and political fragility. In particular, Rwanda is exposed to severe societal as well as high environmental, political, human and economic fragility. Nevertheless, there have been improvements in the economic and human dimensions that reflect a longer-term development trajectory.
Main trends in contexts with medium to low fragility
While this report focuses mainly on contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, trends across contexts exposed to medium to low fragility show a similar range and diversity of fragility. While OECD members are among the most resilient contexts, it is nevertheless noteworthy that fragility increased in 29 of the 38 members, reflecting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic response and the need to stay focused on the fundamentals of resilience during a period of high volatility (Infographic 2.1 above). Beyond the OECD, fragility profiles are particularly diverse, as illustrated by the examples of Ukraine, Russia and Fiji:
Ukraine retains many points of resilience despite the severe impact and deterioration of its security fragility which is now severe due to the Russian war of aggression, that began in February 2022. Resilience is particularly notable in the political, societal and human dimensions with a slight decrease in political fragility in the past two years. Ukraine’s resilience was also strengthened in other areas such as government cybersecurity capacity.
Russia has increased the repression of political dissent and domestic civil society following the decision to launch a war of aggression against Ukraine, increasing fragility in the political and societal dimensions. While economic fragility has also increased due in part to sanctions, Russia remains quite resilient: Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has grown since 2021 due to high energy revenues and war-related fiscal stimuli, though there are signs that the economy is slowing (Stognei and Seddon, 2024[6]).
Fiji has experienced improvements in every dimension, with declines especially in societal, political and economic fragility. These gains partly reflect the first peaceful transfer of power to a coalition government at the end of 2022 (Runey, 2023[7]) and the repeal of a restrictive media law, opening more space for civil society (CIVICUS, 2023[8]).
Sources: UN (2024[3]), "Climate-affected Madagascar adapts to new reality", https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146737; InSight Crime (2024[4]), InSight Crime's 2023 Homicide Round-Up, https://insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/InSight-Crimes-2023-Homicide-Round-Up-Feb-2024-2.pdf; World Vision (2024[5]), "Lesotho Declares National Disaster: Food Insecurity Due to El Niño-Induced Drought", https://www.wvi.org/stories/global-hunger-crisis/lesotho-declares-national-disaster-food-insecurity-due-el-nino-induced; Stognei and Seddon (2024[6]), "The surprising resilience of the Russian economy", Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/d304a182-997d-4dae-98a1-aa7c691526db; Runey (2023[7]), "Case study: Fiji", in The New Checks and Balances: The Global State of Democracy 2023, https://www.idea.int/gsod/2023/chapters/asia-pacific/case/fiji/; CIVICUS (2023[8]), Fiji: Repeal of restrictive media law, reverse of travel bans and other reform commitments a positive signal for civic freedoms, https://monitor.civicus.org/explore/fiji-repeal-of-restrictive-media-law-reverse-of-travel-bans-and-other-reform-commitments-a-positive-signal-for-civic-freedoms/.
The SDGs remain the unifying framework for sustainable development, and their substance will inform the potential of the Pact for the Future, the Global Digital Compact, the Declaration on Future Generations, the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, and other emergent frameworks that may shape a post-2030 conversation where geopolitical necessity meets the reality of global fragility. Achieving the SDGs is a stated priority of DAC members and almost all partners experiencing high or extreme fragility. As of July 2024, 58 of the 61 contexts with high or extreme fragility had presented voluntary national reviews at the UN High-level Political Forum, demonstrating a steady increase in engagement over the last ten years.
However, global progress on achieving the SDGs is decisively off track, highlighting concerns around the suitability and relevance of the international architecture noted in Chapter 1 (Sachs, Lafortune and Fuller, 2024[9]). The loss of momentum is compounded by growing financing gaps, estimated at USD 4 trillion yearly in 2023 compared to USD 2.5 trillion in 2015 (UNODC/OECD/World Bank, 2024[10]). Increased political polarisation, within-country income inequality and human security concerns have made it more difficult to address increasingly interconnected challenges (UNDP, 2024[11]). Gaps in terms of data quality and availability to track the SDGs (Box 2.3) raise questions about the extent to which it is possible to track SDG progress accurately and comprehensively. With this caveat in mind, this section provides preliminary reflections using existing sources.
Contexts with high and extreme fragility are losing ground on poverty reduction and on peace, justice and strong institutions
Not a single context with high or extreme fragility is on track to achieve even 8 of the 17 SDGs (Figure 2.3). Progress has reversed or is stagnating for over 75% of these contexts, according to available data, towards achieving SDGs 1 (no poverty); 2 (zero hunger); 5 (gender equality); 11 (sustainable cities and communities); 15 (life on land); and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). Of particular concern is that in over 38% of contexts with high and extreme fragility, progress on SDG 16 has decreased, and in 28%, it has decreased on SDG 1, showcasing limited economic recovery from COVID-19 and the effects of compounding crises. Only 2 contexts are on track to achieve SDG 1 while none are on track to achieve SDG 16. By way of comparison, 43% of contexts exposed to medium to low fragility are on track to achieve SDG 1, indicating that progress to end poverty is being made almost exclusively in contexts with relatively lower exposure to fragility. Among contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, 16 out of 60 with data availability are on track to achieve SDG 13 (climate action), and 9 are on track to achieve SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production). However, the overall picture is one of net regression on SDG achievement from projected and expected trends presented in the 2022 States of Fragility report.
Note: The figure shows only the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for which sufficient data on progress are available (i.e. with context coverage of more than half in each group). In each panel, the SDGs are listed in descending order starting with those for which progress reversed or stalled in the highest proportion of contexts. Medium to low fragility contexts are all contexts on the OECD fragility framework. Only the category on track or maintaining achievement means that the specific SDG goal will be attained.
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data in Sachs, Lafortune and Fuller (2024[9]), Sustainable Development Report 2024: The SDGs and the UN Summit of the Future, https://s3.amazonaws.com/sustainabledevelopment.report/2024/sustainable-development-report-2024.pdf.
There are widely known gaps in the availability, timeliness and quality of data to track progress on the SDGs worldwide (Kitzmueller, 2019[12]) including for data on marginalised groups. For instance, international comparable data on goals related to SDGs 5 (gender equality), 13 (climate action) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) are available for fewer than half of the world’s countries (Min, Chen and Perucci, 2024[13]). Data quality challenges and gaps tend to be more acute in contexts with high and extreme fragility, due in part to insufficient resources allocated to their statistical systems (Medina Cas, Alem and Bernadette Shirakawa, 2022[14]), and this is often symptomatic of their lower levels of administrative capacity, particularly for contexts experiencing extreme fragility or conflict.
Based on the World Bank’s statistical performance indicators, contexts with high and extreme fragility improved their reporting, on average, on just 5 of the 16 SDGs in 2019-22 – a decline compared with 2015-19 when reporting improved on 10 of the 16 goals. The rate of reporting has declined for critical goals, particularly for SDGs 1 (no poverty), 5 (gender equality), 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). Data gaps create blind spots for policy makers, with lack of granularity, accuracy and comparability being particularly acute in regard to vulnerable groups (e.g. the displaced, the homeless, and ethnic and religious minorities) and for gender-specific indicators (World Bank Group, 2021[15]).
Note: Data are based on a five-year rolling average of data availability of indicators across each SDG as per the methodology of the World Bank Statistical Performance Indicator framework.
Source: World Bank Group (2021[15]), World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives, https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2021; Kitzmueller, Brian and Gerszon Mahler (2019[12]) “Are we there yet? Many countries don’t report progress on all SDGs according to the World Bank’s new Statistical Performance Indicators”, https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/are-we-there-yet-many-countries-dont-report-progress-all-sdgs-according-world-banks-new; World Bank Group (2024[16]), Statistical Performance Indicators (database), https://github.com/worldbank/SPI.
This section focuses on the main intersecting trends within and across each of the six dimensions of fragility, with an emphasis on how sources of risk and resilience combine in various ways to produce different outcomes. This is not an exhaustive analysis. Rather it showcases the adaptability of the framework to analyse fragility at different levels, as a means to make sense of how the world works and how policies can be designed to address interconnected challenges.
Political unrest, violence and economic fragility continue to rise, but progress is possible even in contexts exposed to extreme fragility
Across all dimensions, the biggest shifts observed since 2015 and 2020 have occurred in the security, political and economic dimensions (Figure 2.5). Violence of all types is a symptom and driver of fragility. Responding to drivers of fragility is becoming ever more urgent, as recourse to violence increases. Peacefulness has declined 12 out of the last 16 years (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2024[17]). The 2021-23 period recorded some of the highest fatality rates since the Rwandan genocide in 1994, stemming primarily from ongoing conflicts in Ethiopia, the Middle East, Sudan, and Ukraine (Davies et al., 2024[18]). And while the OECD fragility framework does not yet capture the data for 2024, indications are that the trend of deteriorating security looks set to accelerate following the surge of political violence in 2024, with nearly 200 000 events recorded in that year alone (Raleigh, 2024[19]). Sudan’s fragility has increased significantly since the country-wide civil war broke out in April 2023, severely affecting local populations and pushing Sudan ever closer to state collapse and humanitarian catastrophe (International Crisis Group, 2024[20]). Additional conflicts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Lebanon, and the uncertain futures of Syria and Yemen, have amplified the concerns around fragility in the Middle East that were identified in the 2022 report. These crises are emblematic of a broader regional fragility that goes far beyond the geopolitical and security concerns most frequently cited to include distinct economic, environmental and societal fragility intersections.
For those contexts exposed to high levels of fragility, what particularly stands out is the large increase in political fragility since 2015. Over this period, political fragility has increased in 28 of 43 contexts (and notably in populous contexts such as Bangladesh, as discussed in Chapter 4, Nigeria and Pakistan), where it often intersects with environmental and societal drivers and where the case for upstream structural and systemic prevention is growing stronger. For contexts experiencing medium to low levels of fragility, there has been important deterioration across the political and societal dimensions. However, the divergence of profiles in the medium to low fragility space is broad, and the aggregate figure masks some notable and concerning pockets of fragility that are highlighted later in this section.
In some other dimensions, the fragility framework shows that progress is being made or is possible even in contexts most exposed to fragility. There have been modest improvements in the human dimension in nearly all contexts (17 of 18) exposed to extreme fragility. There has also been progress in effective policy responses to multidimensional challenges such as the impact of COVID-19 or environmental fragility, as evident in Iraq’s response to climate and environmental fragility (Chapter 4). There is a wide divergence of experience across contexts, even those in the same region, as illustrated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia had been making genuine progress, as noted in previous States of Fragility reports, but its fragility rapidly increased due to the Tigray war. Though fragility subsequently declined, apart from political and societal fragility, after the signing of a peace agreement in November 2022, the earlier gains have not been recovered. In contrast, Somalia has taken positive steps, notably in the political and societal dimensions, and is making strides in building its economic resilience even though it started from a lower baseline (Chapter 4).
Political and societal fragility are highly correlated and deteriorated between 2019 and 2023
Political and societal fragility increased in most contexts from 2019 to 2023. The clearest sign is the growing trend towards autocratisation, irrespective of a context’s level of fragility (Figure 2.6). Among high and extreme fragility contexts, slightly more than half (34) of the regimes became more autocratic and 14 became more democratic, while the quality of democracy in another 15 stayed about the same,2 as measured by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Liberal Democracy Index (LDI).3 Autocratisation happened most often through processes of gradual backsliding (in 25 contexts) and through coup d’états (in 9 instances) (Box 2.4). Between 2019 and 2023, the number of closed autocracies doubled from 10 to 20 alongside a parallel decrease, from 42 to 35, in the number of electoral autocracies. Of the eight electoral democracies classified as experiencing high fragility in 2023, only four were continuously democratic from 2019 to 2023; the other four experienced regime changes in that time period. The LDI also shows an overall deterioration in the quality of democracy across all contexts, including in ODA-eligible contexts with medium to low fragility, with reverberating impacts on societal fragility. In contexts with high or extreme fragility, the deterioration in quality and levels of democracy occurred in relation to elections; freedom of association for opposition parties and civil society operating space; and freedom of expression including press and media freedom, academic freedom, and freedom of cultural expression.4
Note: This figure uses V-DEM’s “Regimes of the World” classification noting that West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as Somalia and Somaliland are classified as two separate contexts in that data.
Source: Coppedge, et al. (2024[21]), “V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v14”, https://doi.org/10.23696/mcwt-fr58.
Though exposure to higher levels of fragility has implications for democracies as much as for autocracies, democracies tend to outperform autocracies in several areas, for instance in terms both of stability and predictability of economic growth (Lundstedt et al., 2023[22]) and of many human development- and conflict-related indicators. Democratisation in states with low capacity, many of which experience high and extreme fragility, does not impact economic development negatively (Knusen, 2019[23]). Nevertheless, democratisation often coincides with periods of increasing corruption and clientelism (Lundstedt et al., 2023[22]), with the least corruption presenting in highly effective democracies and stringent autocracies. By many measures, however, democracies outperform autocracies, including in terms of levels of education enrolment, infant mortality and access to public goods (Lundstedt et al., 2023[22]). One reason could be that democracy tends to promote mechanisms of accountability, both vertical (e.g. elections and the risk of leader turnover) and diagonal (e.g. the watchdog role of media and civil society). Liberal democracies also tend to have higher levels of government effectiveness than many autocracies (Infographic 2.3). There are some notable exceptions. Some autocratic contexts in Asia with high levels of political fragility are not classified as being exposed to high or extreme fragility since they possess significant points of resilience that cancel out risks or insufficient resilience carried in other dimensions of fragility.
Political elites are motivated by the expediency of certain regime types, personal preferences and institutional constraints
Analysis of systems of governance, and of how power works within those systems, points to several underlying components of fragility that influence pathways to autocratisation, including the perceived expediency of a regime type, institutional capacities and elite motivation.
There is a large diversity of governance systems among autocracies with high fragility. Among the 20 closed autocracies with high and extreme fragility in 2023, there were 9 military regimes, 1 hereditary regime and 10 one-party regimes.5 Some contexts can be classified as states fractured by elite competition or challenged from below (Luckham, 2021[24]) that have limited control over their territories and contested monopolies of violence; others are regimes deploying violence to ensure their survival, while many have competitive elections and/or hegemonic parties. In addition, many contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility are hybrid regimes where provision of services, security and other public goods resides with state authorities and customary, informal or other non-state entities. These systems of governance may overlap, coexist and/or compete (Caparini, 2022[25]) and tend to operate on the basis of “personal transactions in which political services and allegiances are exchanged for material rewards in a competitive manner”6 (de Waal, 2016[26]).
State capacity, defined as a mixture of coercive and administrative capacity, tends to be lower in high and extreme fragility contexts (Figure 2.7). Lack of statistical knowledge or legibility in regard to the breadth and depth of the state’s knowledge about its citizens and activities (M. Lee, 2017[27]) as well as associated factors such as levels of education and incentives are key impediments to building resilience. This tends to be exacerbated in the face of international community withdrawals. As seen with Somalia (Chapter 4), developing nationally produced and owned statistical data (e.g. censuses and household surveys) that are in a standardised format, timely and comparable and building national statistical office capacity are both critical to enable key functions of the state such as collecting tax revenues and providing public goods. In contexts with higher exposure to fragility, a large share of the population often does not have official identification papers and birth certificates, which can prevent them from accessing employment and financial services, participating in elections, and receiving government financial support.
Note: This figure measures the number of contexts in each category (high and extreme fragility) which have done at least one of these types of census over the past twelve year period (2012-2023).
Source: World Bank Group (2024[16]), Statistical Performance Indicators (database), https://github.com/worldbank/SPI.
Given these characteristics, how elites in high and extreme fragility contexts perceive their relative fragility and power is a significant determining factor in transitions away from or towards autocracy. Historically, over two thirds of transitions from autocracy to democracy have occurred within three to five years after a violent internal shock (e.g. a coup or political assassination) or external shock (e.g. hegemonic withdrawal) (Miller, 2021[28]). The prevalence of coups in recent years offers valuable insights into elite motivations and choices, as discussed in Box 2.4. Severely limited resilience of state institutions incentivises narrowly framed transactional decision making among political leaders. Where political options are limited, coups are often seen as an efficient means to attain political objectives in contexts with high or extreme fragility.
The frequency of coups is noticeable where militaries are deeply embedded in the political-economic fabric of a context. The number of attempted and successful coups has been increasing, with important implications for thinking on peacebuilding, conflict prevention and specific issues such as security sector engagement (Chapter 3). Over 2021-23, there were ten coups in contexts experiencing high or extreme fragility. Nine of these were military coups. Six of the ten occurred in the Sahel region alone, where several contexts are characterised by low levels of human security, including localised subnational security fragility and large populations of forcibly displaced persons.
A prominent feature of contexts affected by coups is the established presence of direct military power or the military’s maintenance of the regime for long periods of time. Myanmar, continuously ruled by the military from 1962 to 2011, is an example (Maizland, 2022[29]), and its 2021 coup precipitated a worsening of existing security fragility. In the Sahel region, new military juntas or post-coup governments have sought alternative sources of legitimacy and security and of economic and diplomatic support. Russia, for instance, has been particularly involved in the realm of security, but other regional and neighbouring contexts have also engaged through measures including economic assistance (Singh, 2022[30]).
Source: Maizland (2022[29]), Myanmar’s Troubled History: Coups, Military Rule, and Ethnic Conflict, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/myanmar-history-coup-military-rule-ethnic-conflict-rohingya; Wilén (2024[31]), “Contagious coups in Africa? History of civil-military imbalance’, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adae011; Danish Institute for International Studies (2023[32]), “The 'politics of coups' shape the response to West Africa´s military juntas”, https://www.diis.dk/en/node/26399; Singh (2022[30]), “The myth of the coup contagion”, https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-myth-of-the-coup-contagion/.
In many contexts, and not only those experiencing coups, there has been a markedly greater willingness in recent years to use violence as a bargaining tool to retain or seize power. This is especially a feature of high and extreme fragility contexts where power resides outside state systems and institutions. For instance, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), power is distributed through dynamic patronage networks of “big men” that straddle different political marketplaces and through ad hoc alliances rather than formal institutions (Schouten, 2021[33]). These networks do not constitute an integrated political marketplace but “operate in and between different local marketplaces and the national marketplace” (Schouten, 2021[33]). In the DRC and other contexts such as the Central African Republic, these practices are closely associated with the threat or application of violence to apply pressure on individuals or groups and to secure resources, as protection or as part of negotiations and bargaining (Caparini, 2022[25]).
Peace and development initiatives to help prevent conflict and incentivise growth should look beyond regime type to the factors that influence the nature of a political settlement and to the ways fragility across all dimensions impacts the political marketplace, incentivising violence as an efficient means to achieve political and economic objectives.
Note: Bottom graph: use of the government effectiveness variable which captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies and the aggregate fragility score (bottom graph). The following V-Dem indices were used for the top graph: v2x_cspart (civil society participation); v2x_frassoc_thick (freedom of association); v2x_freexp_altinf (freedom of information and alternative sources of information); v2xel_frefair (clean elections) and v2x_gender (women political empowerment). Certain indicators in the clean elections index are only measured during election years.
Source: Coppedge et al. (2024[21]), “V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v14”, https://doi.org/10.23696/mcwt-fr58; Author’s calculations based on Peyton et al. (2025[34]), Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, https://doi.org/10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V8; World Bank Group (n.d.[35]), Worldwide Governance Indicators, https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governance-indicators.
The impact of fragility on young populations in high and extreme fragility contexts exemplifies the interplay of risks and resilience that drive unique presentations of fragility profiles across the OECD fragility framework. Consistent with global trends, political, security and economic factors are prominent across youth narratives. But at a context level, these intersect with other aspects of risk and resilience that can be equally if not more important. This section looks at four such aspects: political agency, the risks and opportunities associated with digitalisation, inequalities and gender divides and the potential of different sources of resilience to be a means to development and peace.
Young populations are at the centre of political-economic changes
Student protests linked to environmental, economic and political fragility are a notable feature across the globe and, in 2024, increased significantly. For example, transnational youth-led groups are raising the alarm about climate and environmental threats, using platforms like Fridays for the Future to make their voices heard. Interestingly, while conflicts are widely covered in the media, particularly those in the Middle East, only 20% of the 32 000 demonstrations recorded by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project in 2023 and 2024 were related to conflict (Murillo and Paris, 2024[36]). These types of activities are emblematic of the contrasting power and vulnerability of young populations, which is most apparent on the continent of Africa.
According to the UN, about half of the world’s population is between the ages of 25 and 65. These populations are not distributed equally across the world. Africa is the only region that has far more younger people than older people, and most of the youth population is and will continue to be concentrated in the high and extreme fragility contexts of sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 2.8).
Note: South Asia includes Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. MENA stands for Middle East and North Africa.
Source: UN DESA (2024[1]), 2024 Revision of World Population Prospects (database), https://population.un.org/wpp/.
This demographic transformation is neither inherently progressive nor regressive. This matters for policy makers considering how to engage, and they are not the only ones focusing on this demographic. The political and economic aspirations and grievances of youth vary according to class, gender and whether populations are based in urban or rural locations. But these dynamics intersect with combinations of drivers of fragility across all dimensions. Youth are an audience to be captured, and their agency confers significant political value with both positive and negative potential. Youth can be incentivised to join gangs and militias but also civil society and enterprise groups. How this demographic interacts with digital trends illustrates the complex challenges for youth engagement.
Risk and opportunities of digitalisation for youth in contexts with high and extreme fragility
Across all contexts, the digital aspect of youth power, political engagement and enterprise is a rapidly developing feature, though it manifests in divergent ways and with pronounced gender and class dimensions. Internet use is lowest in contexts with high and extreme fragility; less than 43% of the population in those contexts uses the Internet, which is less than half the share in the most connected regions7 (Our World in Data, 2023[37]). The ability of young populations to harness the potential of digital platforms to improve their lives is complicated by other aspects of digital technologies. There are plenty of examples of positive change and innovation: mobile payments such as M-Pesa in Kenya and the National Payment System in Somalia (Bareisaite, Goyal and Karpinski, 2022[38]), for instance, and the growth of low-cost internet services, digital entrepreneurship, digital education and public services digitalisation. For each of these, there are unfortunately negative examples such as cybersecurity threats (including data breaches and fraud), job displacement and cost barriers that compound existing drivers of fragility. Critical shortfalls across the human dimension of fragility, but especially in education, compromise digital literacy and drive digital gaps and gender-based divides (Benveniste and Angel-Urdinola, 2023[39]).
However, despite low levels of digital literacy, young populations in all contexts are finding ways to develop their knowledge and build markets by “linking and learning” across growing digital networks (Sakwa and Njoki, 2022[40]). For instance, digital financial platforms in Tanzania have empowered microenterprises by providing access to mobile banking, creating economic progress even where traditional banking is scarce. Such technologies allow individuals to manage funds, which fosters financial inclusivity and local economic development. Yet, without widespread access to digital tools, these benefits remain limited to certain demographics, deepening the digital divide and leading to uneven progress within regions and across socio-economic groups. For those cut off from supporting sources of resilience, access to an online gig economy can improve labour mobility but also simultaneously drive wage disparity, inequality and exclusion (Yassien, 2023, pp. 7-8[41]).
A capacity expectations gap is emerging with young populations increasingly aspiring to digital futures for which there is little infrastructural support. Over 80% of Africa’s youth in school aspire to work in high‑skilled occupations, but only 8% find such jobs (AUC/OECD, 2024[42]). A recent OECD survey of digital policy and regulatory frameworks in East Africa found that only 1 of 14 contexts, Kenya, had a youth empowerment policy (AUC/OECD, 2024[42]);12 of the 14 contexts are exposed to high or extreme fragility. These findings point to a lack of resilience that poses risks where it connects with other disparities between contexts with extreme, high and medium to low fragility. For example, the growth of cyber and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms puts contexts with high and extreme fragility at risk of further marginalisation; vulnerability to cyber surveillance and digital imbalances of power such as AI-enabled decision making (Rizk and Cordey, 2023[43]); and the privatisation of knowledge and public goods (Beetham, 2023[44]). For contexts with already weak sources of resilience, these are substantial impediments to sustainable development.
Social media as an arena for inequality and digital divides
In the political space, youth who feel detached from traditional political systems are strengthening their voice and agency by leveraging digital platforms to share information, mobilise participation, and shape electoral and political processes (Sakwa and Njoki, 2022[40]). Social media, especially, plays a significant role in how a country's image and internal policies are scrutinised by international and internal audiences, leading to consequences that transcend borders. For example, in countries where gender-based inequalities are more pronounced (Chapter 4), online discourse about women's rights can shape international public opinion, potentially attracting criticism that influences diplomatic relationships and pressures governments to reform. On key measures of digital accessibility – internet use, digital skills and mobile phone ownership (UN Children's Fund, 2023[45]) – young women are increasingly excluded. This digital gender gap intersects with other sources of fragility that deepen women’s safety and security concerns, constrain mobility, and can artificially reinforce restrictive sociocultural norms (Figure 2.9) (Mboob, Osam and Robinson, 2022[46]).
Note: The chart on the left uses the share of individuals using the internet. The chart on the right, from 2022, uses the “Used a mobile phone or the internet to send money (% age15+)”. Data for this chart is only available for 22 out of 61 contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility but was used for illustrative purposes.
Source: World Bank (2025[47]), Gender Data Portal, https://genderdata.worldbank.org/; World Bank (2024[48]), World Development Indicators, https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators.
Pathways of resilience for youth: Focusing on the human dimension of resilience
The ambitions of young people in contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility can be a source of resilience but also, if thwarted, impact on fragility. African youth, increasingly digitally connected, aspire to high‑skilled occupations in the formal sector, and yet most employment remains informal with limited potential for skills development and productivity (AUC/OECD, 2024[42]). At a regional level, high levels of informality correlate with areas where high and extreme fragility are concentrated. An estimated 82% of all workers in Africa are informal – the highest share of informal employment globally – compared to 56% for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and 73% for ODA-eligible contexts in Asia (AUC/OECD, 2024[42]). In contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, bridging the gap between emerging digital capabilities and the foundational components for economic performance, skills, education and other aspects of human capital, must account for drivers of fragility that lie beyond the scope of policy approaches elsewhere, such as poverty, conflict or societal restrictions.
Amidst the pressure to adopt digital innovations, governance considerations are often given short shrift, though they play a critical role in driving appropriate digitalisation trajectories (OECD, 2021, p. 47[49]). This compromises resilience building. (For contexts at risk of armed conflict and violence, governance considerations intersect with approaches for conflict prevention, as discussed in Chapter 3.) Many donors and partners are already developing initiatives to empower youth agency. The Digify Africa organisation offers transnational digital and business skill training to young Africans, including on linking with private sector partners. In Mozambique, the focus is on addressing educational disparities and teacher shortages – just 15% of students older than 25 have completed lower secondary education versus nearly 29% in Angola, a context that like Mozambique is experiencing high fragility (AUC/OECD, 2024[42]). Also in Mozambique, initiatives such as +EMPREGO aim to boost youth qualifications for available jobs by building public‑private partnerships and, in Cabo Delgado province for example, to improve youth access to employment and self‑employment. Such initiatives are also consistent with thinking on upstream conflict prevention discussed in Chapter 3. Similarly, in Mauritius, projects aimed at skills training for marginalised groups, in particular women and youth, have contributed to a steady increase in women’s labour force participation since 2005 (AUC/OECD, 2024[42]).
Gender inequality is one of the root causes of fragility and a key indicator of development trajectories. As noted, no context experiencing high or extreme fragility is on track to achieve SDG 5 on gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Consistent with previous States of Fragility reports, women and girls in contexts with high and extreme fragility are more exposed to distinct health risks, such as maternal mortality, female genital mutilation and early pregnancies. They tend to have lower educational outcomes – out of discrimination but also as a consequence of higher health risks; experience higher levels of gender discrimination, and lower access to social protection, which further undermines their human capital with consequences across all dimensions of fragility (OECD, 2022, p. 4[50]).
Poor working conditions and lower pay are also an established feature in all contexts with high and extreme fragility with pronounced impact in contexts such as DRC, Malawi, Madagascar, and Kenya where job destruction and creation as a result of energy transitions can lead to new spatial and gender inequalities (OECD, 2023[51]). Gender inequality is a feature in all 61 contexts with high and extreme fragility but there is significant variation of equality trends across contexts. The Gambia stands at one end of the spectrum, and though it retains severe fragility on key measures such as youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), since 2014, it has demonstrated progress on issues such as women’s political empowerment (Coppedge et al., 2024[21]), and economic participation opportunity (World Economic Forum, 2024[52]). From a very low baseline, gender equality has progressed steadily since the transition to a democracy following the fall of President Yahya Jammeh in 2017. In line with the emphasis on gender informed strategies highlighted in the example of Colombia in Chapter 4, gender initiatives have been a pronounced feature of development and peace processes in The Gambia, covering transitional justice, constitutional reform, national development, and security sector reform. The increase in the recruitment and promotion of women police officers is one example of a series of resilience building measures across state institutions (Gambia, 2024[53]). Some progress, especially associated with women’s economic empowerment, can also be observed in Solomon Islands and Guinea, though in both cases departing from low baselines. In other cases, progress toward legal gender equality under the law was prominent in sub-Saharan African with six contexts enacting 20 legal changes including: Equatorial Guinea, Lesotho, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Uganda (World Bank, 2024, p. 7[54]).
At the other end of the spectrum there is more cause for concern especially linked to political transitions and conflict. Eight of the ten contexts with the widest gender gap are exposed to high and extreme fragility (World Economic Forum, 2024[52]), five of these contexts are also exposed to organised violence: Chad, DRC, Mali, Niger, and Sudan. This figure does not include Afghanistan, where access to data is a significant impediment (though not an impossible impediment as shown in Mariam Safi’s contribution in Chapter 4). Reflecting the more recent discriminatory edicts by the Taliban regime, that restrict movement and opportunities for women and girls, Afghanistan has recorded the largest decline in women’s economic empowerment up to 2023 (Coppedge et al., 2024[21]). In other contexts, with traditionally stronger performance on gender indicators, there are concerning signs of deterioration. Between 2014 and 2023, Nicaragua, has shown a notable decrease in women’s political empowerment, reflected in measures such as the outlawing of feminist groups (Coppedge et al., 2024[21]; Vílchez, 2022[55]). As seen in Deqa Yasin’s contribution in Chapter 4, risks to the lives of women and girls are also evolving through increased exposure to online threats. Though autocratic contexts have continued to curtail women’s rights and gender equality (Chenoweth and Marks, 2022[56]), the instrumentalisation of fragility by contexts such as Russia as outlined in Chapter 1, is often associated with democratic backsliding: the impact of democratic backsliding on women and girls needs to be carefully monitored to inform preventive measures.
Sexual and gender-based violence continues to be a prevalent feature of conflict-affected contexts, frequently deployed as a tactic of war (de Silva de Alwis, 2023[57]). For example, the use of sexual violence as a means for revenge was a pronounced feature of the conflict in Tigray leaving a devastating impact on estimated “40 to 50 percent of women and girls in the Tigray, Amhara, Afar, and Oromia regions of Ethiopia” (Bekele and Eckles, 2023[58]). These findings co-exist with remarkable accounts of bravery, such as the 49 women-led organisations in Sudan pushing for a more inclusive peace process, in extremely politically constrained circumstances (UN Women, 2024[59]).
In all contexts with high and extreme fragility, violence against women is closely associated with inequality but the pressures driving this are often closely linked to political, economic and societal pressures (Infographic 2.4). Disparities in human development are greatest in contexts exposed to extreme fragility in the Middle East and South Asia, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen where the gap between women’s human development and men’s is the widest (Infographic 2.4). However, as with findings elsewhere in this chapter, contexts often show distinct and contrasting trends linked to societal and political fragility at local levels. For example, Iraq has established gender equality and non-discrimination as a component of all five pillars of its Decent Work Country Programme including: employment for women, youth and other vulnerable groups; education that promotes equal opportunities in accessing quality education, training and adequate skills; labour rights protection focused on ensuring adequate protection for all workers; transition to a formal economy, protecting workers in the informal economy; and the expansion of social protection and the strengthening the ability of individuals and enterprises (OECD, 2024, p. 270[60]). At the same time it has amended laws on marriage age, custody rights and protections for women and children, that have raised concerns on societal, including ethnic and religious sensitivities (ReliefWeb, 2025[61]).
The incidence of child marriage is also slowly declining globally, although the pace of progress is insufficient to attain the SDG target by 2030. This trend also masks variations across regions and income groups, with the incidence of child marriage declining overall in South Asia but increasing among the poorest wealth quintile in sub-Saharan Africa (UN Children's Fund, 2023[62]). The 15 contexts with the highest rate of girls marrying by the age of 18 are all exposed to high or extreme fragility. A confluence of factors – conflict, natural disasters compounded by climate change and public health crises – threaten to slow further progress. For example, in Bangladesh, months of drought and the immediate aftermath of natural disasters such as cyclones are associated with an increased risk of child marriage in rural, agricultural-dependent areas (Save the Children, 2023[63]). Child marriage contributes to other adverse outcomes as girls are taken out of school early and put at higher risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth. All ten of the contexts with the highest education exclusion rates for girls are exposed to either high fragility (Djibouti, Guinea, Mali and Niger) or extreme fragility (Afghanistan, CAR, Chad, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, and South Sudan) (UNESCO, 2024, p. 8[64]).
The incidence of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been declining overall in the past 30 years and all but one of the fifteen contexts with the highest prevalence are exposed to high and extreme fragility.8 At the same time, some contexts (e.g. Burkina Faso) have made significant progress in eliminating the practice while rates remain high in other contexts including Somalia and Gambia at 99% and 73%, respectively (UN Children's Fund, 2024[65]). However, in July 2024, The Gambian parliament voted to uphold the ban on FGM (United Nations, 2024[66]).
In more than half of contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility, attitudes to violence against women are showing improvements. Attitudes on violence against women,9 as measured by the OECD’s Social Institutions and Gender Index, shows improvement in 36 of the contexts most exposed to high and extreme fragility since 2021, and available data suggest norms and attitudes are slowly changing. However, data on sexual and gender-based violence relies on sources that are infrequently updated, including demographic and health surveys, and in most contexts with extreme fragility these can be difficult to collect.
As risks to gender equality evolve in contexts with high and extreme fragility and as responses are challenged, is a reset required?
Gender equality and women’s economic empowerment offer transformative potential in contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility and have been an important focus for the DAC (OECD, 2022[67]). The share of ODA commitments with gender objectives increased from around 37% in 2014-15 to 48% in 2022-23. However, after peaking in 2018-19, commitments to contexts with high and extreme fragility have slightly decreased. Contexts with extremely fragility that are also conflict-affected and receive high amounts of ODA tend to have a low focus on gender equality. Contexts such as Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan that receive over USD 1 billion had gender equality objectives in less than one-third of ODA (OECD, 2024, p. 41[68]). Given the issues affecting Afghan women outlined in Chapter 4, the low integration of gender equality objectives into aid to Afghanistan risks contributing to a deeper entrenchment of the backsliding of the rights of women and girls.
If support for gender equality starts with the planning and design of development programmes, then the above trends on gender equality stress the need for swift adjustments to existing practices. DAC members have been proactive in addressing gender-based inequalities by establishing innovative funding channels for women’s rights organisations, girls education, and implementing climate-smart agricultural programmes designed to improve the economic status of women (OECD, 2024, p. 27[60]). A similarly agile approach will be required to address concerns about the associated impact of democratic backsliding and a backlash against progress in gender equality. This will challenge existing ways of engaging on issues of gender equality and sexual and gender-based violence. For example, this will include confronting visible attacks online and in person on women and women’s issues, while also developing better ways to assess and respond to perceived instances of ‘gender washing’, especially by autocratic regimes (Bush and Zetterberg, 2023[69]). Measures such as the DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance (OECD-DAC, 2024[70]) and the DAC Recommendation on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of All Women and Girls in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance (OECD-DAC, 2024[70])(2024) will be essential to navigate the emerging landscape across all contexts, regardless of their exposure to fragility.
Finally, calls to address the availability of data on women and girls have been largely ignored. Major data gaps continue to exist for contexts with high fragility and there are critical gaps for those exposed to extreme fragility. While the data included in this report outlines some of the breadth of issues, patterns and connections, the full potential of this type of analysis is far from realised. More systematic sex-disaggregated data collection across all contexts and all types of data will be necessary for accurate assessments to inform better responses in all contexts.
What is known about the lives of young men in contexts with high fragility
According to research by the OECD (2019[71]), norms related to masculinities are another relevant factor in explaining gender inequality within society (Chancel et al., 2022[72]). Multiple drivers of fragility impact the lives of young men in contexts with high and extreme fragility. As highlighted in contributions on Colombia and Bangladesh in Chapter 4, the combination of access to digital technologies, lack of economic opportunity and protests lead or incentivise young men towards negative coping capacities. In this sense, the backsliding observed in improving the lives of women and girls is symptomatic of reduced or stressed resilience among young men. In many contexts, young men are also exposed to compounding expectations and pathways that shape the choices that they make. Calls for integrating positive masculinities, through means such as art and social media, have struggled to compete with more traditional narratives around masculinities and the perspectives on the roles of women (Feki et al., 2017, p. 266[73]). It is important to educate young men on women’s perspectives, experiences and challenges but also to recognise that men also experience gender inequalities and depend on health, education and power over economic resources to advance in their lives (Pichat, 2022[74]).
Implicit in many of the contributions to Chapter 4 of this report is an idea that the needs of men are changing in many contexts. While sparce, the analysis on this issue that is available suggests two salient issues affecting the lives of men in contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility. One is the ongoing strain for men in the process of accumulating human capital and the destruction or erosion of their human capital and ability to be productive members of society. There is often a pronounced class dimension to these issues linking health, general education and job-specific training (Jacobsen, 2006, pp. 6-23[75]). The second issue is the changes in roles and identities of men in transitioning economies, often associated with migration from rural to urban areas or transitions from pre-industrial to industrial economies. In most contexts with high or extreme fragility, armed conflict and violence also significantly impact how men view their roles and identities. Addressing these issues should not come at the expense of measures to improve the lives of women. But they likely require tailored approaches that, for now at least, are in notably short supply, which fosters the drift towards negative coping capacities.
Young men also are typically most exposed to the negative impacts high levels of violence affecting physical, psychological and social functioning (World Health Organization, 2024[76]). The indirect costs of organised violence in terms of mental health and generational trauma feed an increasingly complex dynamic for young men and for women. Rates of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are two to three times higher among people affected by armed conflict (Carpiniello, 2023[77]). As seen in the perspective on forced displacement in Venezuela (Chapter 4) these include women who are victims of gender-based violence and children exposed to high levels of collective violence, who are more likely to develop chronic diseases. The impacts are particularly problematic in contexts that have experienced protracted conflict as mental health problems may indirectly contribute to future cycles of violence when collective trauma and past grievances increase the risk of future conflict (Oestericher, Taha and Ahmadi, 2024[78]).
Note: Only 163 contexts on the fragility framework also have data on the gender inequality index (GII) which is a composite metric of gender inequality using three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and the labour market. A low GII value indicates low levels of inequality between women and men, and vice-versa. The Human Development Index (HDI) values for male versus female take the most recent year (2022). Data on gender equality objectives takes two-year averages for commitments made by DAC members.
Source: World Bank (2024[79]), Women, Business and the Law 2024. (dataset), https://wbl.worldbank.org/en/wbl-data; UNDP (2024[80]), Gender inequality index (GII), database, https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/composite-indices; UNDP (2024[81]), Human Development Index (HDI) (database), https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI; OECD (2024[82]), OECD Data Explorer, Creditor Reporting System (flows) database, http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/z1.
In 2025, the OECD multidimensional fragility framework identifies 29 contexts as experiencing high to severe levels of fragility in the security dimension. Of these, 25 are also experiencing high to severe fragility in the political dimension, an indication of the interlinkage between high levels of political fragility and different types of violence.
Conflict and war have become more prevalent and diffused among high and extreme fragility contexts. In 2023, 24 contexts with high or extreme fragility were conflict-affected and10 eight were in a state of war. In addition, the number of state-based armed conflicts is now at an all-time high (59), and 47 of these involve at least one high or extreme fragility context11 (Figure 2.10). These figures are consistent with the trends of an increasing number of internationalised intrastate conflicts.12 In 2023, 19 of 20 such conflicts occurred in contexts with high and extreme fragility, which is consistent with the assessment that many of these contexts exist in a “conflict trap” (Milante, Mueller and Muggah, 2021[83]).
Reflecting the spatial distribution of violence, approximately 14% of the population residing in contexts with high and extreme fragility from January 2024 to December 2024 were directly exposed to organised violence13,14 (ACLED, 2024[84]) (Infographic 2.5). Such exposure to organised violence significantly affects how fragility is experienced, with important heterogeneity among these contexts and even among those at war. For instance, while approximately 55% of Myanmar’s population was exposed to an event of organised violence in 2024, the same was true for only 14% of Ethiopia’s population.
Note: The percentage for Syria and Ethiopia reflects fatalities out of the total occurring in contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility.
Source: Davies, et al. (Davies et al., 2024[18]), “Organized violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups”, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241262912; Sundberg and Melander (2013[85]), “Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343313484347.
The increase in non-state violence, especially in contexts with high and extreme fragility, is one of the most significant trends of recent years. From 2010 to 2023, non-state violence increased by 71%, peaking in the period from 2014 to 2018. From 2021 to 2023, non-state conflicts were concentrated in the DRC, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan and Syria. Reflecting the global spread of violence, non-state violence was more prevalent in medium to low fragility contexts than in high and extreme fragility contexts from 2018 onwards, largely due to infighting between organised criminal groups in contexts located in Central and South America (Figure 2.11).
Note: Contexts in medium to low fragility refers to ODA and non-ODA eligible contexts.
Source: Davies, et al. (2024[18]), “Organized violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups”, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241262912; Sundberg and Melander (2013[85]), “Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343313484347.
Overall deaths from terrorism have increased (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2024[86]), with trends fluctuating over the past three years, especially in contexts with extreme fragility15. There have been important changes in the geography of terrorism, which has decreased in Afghanistan (following the Taliban takeover in mid-2021) while attacks have increased in the Sahel region (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2024[86]).
The Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 constituted the largest single terrorist attack since 9/11 (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2024[86]) and looks set to reverse a regional trend for declining terrorism in the Middle East. While this report does not have the data to assess the impact of these events in detail, it seems that the event has prompted significant changes in the region’s fragility profile.
Overall, the trends point to a diversification of the use of violence for political and economic purposes and the increasing need for new thinking on upstream preventative measures (Chapter 3) that balance state and societal resilience with incentives in the political-economic space. The experience of Colombia, presented in Chapter 4, offers insights into such measures.
The human toll of violent conflict is concentrated in contexts with high and extreme fragility
The human impact of violent conflict is concentrated in contexts with high and extreme fragility. The years 2021, 2022 and 2023 each accounted for more annual fatalities than any prior year since 1994 (the year of the Rwanda genocide) (Davies et al., 2024[18]). A decrease in the share of fatalities occurring in contexts with high and extreme fragility is mainly attributable to the signing of a peace agreement between Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in November 2022, which lowered the conflict level. The declining share also reflects rising fatalities in medium to low fragility contexts specifically due to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine since 2022. Russia and Ukraine are classified as experiencing medium to low fragility. Including fatalities from state-based, non-state violence and one-sided violence, over half (32) of all contexts facing high and extreme fragility experienced at least 25 fatalities in any given year from 2021 to 2023. These results are already grim, but they do not reflect data for 2024, which are not available at the time of publishing. Conflict events surged by 25% in 2024, which is already being described as “an extraordinarily vicious year” (Raleigh, 2024[19]).
Through a fragility lens: Why is violence reaching record levels?
There is no simple answer to this question, but three specific presentations of violence demonstrate how combinations of fragility drive and derive from different types of violence.
Violence is increasing due to specific combinations of risk and resilience
Increasing human and societal fragility in contexts exposed to or at high risk of violence is a significant indicator of the potential for long conflict cycles, as sources of resilience diminish over time. For example, the occurrence of one-sided violence in contexts with high and extreme fragility more than tripled from 2010 to 2023, peaking in 2014 due to conflicts in the Central African Republic, Iraq and Nigeria and again in 2021 due to conflicts in the DRC and Ethiopia. The profiles of these conflicts vary significantly in terms of rising risks and weak or declining sources of resilience including food insecurity, different types of disease, economic collapse, destruction of healthcare infrastructure, and higher maternal mortality rates and neonatal fatalities, among others (Savell, 2023[87]).
Many conflict zone fatalities occur due to indirect effects of war, and these are likely to be more profound in contexts with the greatest fragility. In the case of healthcare, for example, conflict can cause and compound the destruction of health, water and sanitation infrastructure as well as disrupt medical supply chains, prevent patients from seeking care due to fear of violence and lead to a brain drain of trained health professionals. These in turn lead to a decrease in key sources of resilience, lowering the quality of care, which may ultimately lead to a surge in infectious diseases, and increasing maternal and newborn mortality rates and disease-related deaths (Savell, 2023[87]). When malnutrition and disease are associated with economic collapse, which can lead to distortion in the supply of and demand for food and basic goods, these health impacts are concomitantly responsible for a large part of conflict-related fatalities. In the case of the Tigray war in Ethiopia, for example, estimates suggest that there were between 150 000 and 200 000 people dying as a result of starvation and more than 100 000 dying due to lack of healthcare (Fisher and Jackson, 2024[88]). In such contexts, it is important to emphasise that women and children are more likely to bear the indirect costs in high-conflict regions and rural areas where the state has a smaller presence (Savell, 2023[87]).
Rapid urbanisation offers opportunities for the spread of organised crime and associated violence. The urbanisation rates of 3.5% yearly in high and extreme fragility contexts lead to a doubling of the urban population roughly every 20 years.16 Such rapid population growth in peri-urban areas is an important risk factor for violence (Elfversson and Höglund, 2023[89]), particularly when these areas are disconnected from power centres and public service delivery mechanisms. This allows organised crime groups to establish transport nodes for illicit financial flows, leverage land value capture and real estate markets, and establish territorial control, including as providers of basic services in the absence of state or other providers (Sampaio, 2024[90]). In many cities, there is a blurring of the line between criminal and political violence. Lagos serves as an illustration: Political parties and elites there perpetuate violence to preserve the unequal distribution of power and resources by recruiting gangs that attack rivals, intimidate party members and rig elections, often becoming especially active prior to elections (Adzande, Meth and Commins, 2024[91]).
Source: Davies, et al. (2024[18]), “Organized violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups”, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241262912; Sundberg and Melander (2013[85]), “Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343313484347; Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (2023[92]), Global Organized Crime Index 2023 (dataset), https://ocindex.net/downloadshttps://ocindex.net/downloadshttps://ocindex.net/downloads.
The interplay of specific combinations of risk and declining or diminished resilience at subnational levels drives violence in other ways as well, especially around the distribution of political power and state resources between the state and the periphery and among various subnational actors (Wolff, Ross and Wee, 2020[93]). These patterns are evident in Nigeria, where different types of organised violence coexist, due to the limitations of a security sector that struggles to provide security to all parts of the country equally. Examples include armed banditry in the northwest in the form of cattle rustling and kidnapping (Madueke et al., 2024[94]); counter-insurgency campaigns against Islamist militant groups in the northeast; pastoralist-farmer conflicts in the Middle Belt region; and occasional outbreaks of violence in the southern half of Nigeria as a result of electoral competition, banditry and cultism (Carboni, 2023[95]).
Violence is increasing for its political expediency
Many conflicts occur at the subnational level in “geographically, economically, or politically peripheral areas where state capacity is weak or mostly absent” (Raleigh and Linke, 2018[96]). In such configurations, violence can be constitutive of subnational governance – for instance, it can be used as a tool of competition between political agents. The increase in non-state armed groups and subnational patterns of conflict is frequently associated with the establishment of different forms of parallel governance structures due to the lack of effective territorial control of certain states. At least 14 out of 18 contexts with extreme fragility have contestation of the state’s monopoly on violence by a myriad of actors including insurgencies, rebel groups or organised criminal groups. On average, in 2023, the central governments of contexts with extreme fragility control approximately 76% of their territories as opposed to 87% in contexts with high fragility and 95% in contexts classified with medium to low fragility.17 As such, an estimated 150-160 million people live in areas where non-state armed groups provide parallel governance structures e.g. access to justice, basic services and security (Lilja et al., 2024[97]). Areas of rebel governance e.g. areas controlled by Islamist extremist groups, are usually part of competitive statebuilding strategies in which control is exclusively held by rebel groups; these differ from areas of criminal governance. Far from being limited to contexts with high and extreme fragility, parallel governance structures are prevalent in both rural and urban areas across a wide variety of contexts.
State-embedded actors are regarded as the most dominant perpetrators of organised crime (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2023[98]) in all regions. They are especially prevalent in contexts with higher levels of fragility: 17 of the 20 contexts with the highest average on this metric are exposed to high and extreme fragility. Examples include Venezuela and the former Baathist regime in Syria, with state-embedded actors relying heavily on narcotics trafficking (Pelcastre, 2023[99]) of cocaine in the former and captagon in the latter. Contexts in Central Africa are particularly affected by a combination of a high degree of state-embedded actors and low resilience to organised crime.
In LAC in particular, criminal governance is usually a form of hybrid governance whereby criminal groups are embedded with state power through symbiotic arrangements between the state and criminal organisations, for instance through collusion, co-optation, intimidation and/or bribery (Lessing, 2021[100]). As such, this system of divided sovereignty is often present in areas with limited or non-existent state infrastructural power such as informal settlements in urban areas, peripheral rural areas and border zones (Feldmann and Luna, 2022[101]). In some major urban contexts, for example, militias intervene in the provision of services such as education, health, social services, land tenure, property rights and housing that are neglected by the state, acting as brokers in a coercive client-patron relationship while having shared interests and entanglements with state, political and business actors (Pope and Sampaio, 2024[102]).
The diversification of organised violence can also be connected to shifts in regional geopolitics, especially where regional and middle powers seek to manipulate or capitalise on fragility and conflict to achieve their foreign policy objectives. Foreign policy interventions by these actors often bypass existing international institutions and forums and support authoritarian regimes, which undermines traditional conflict resolution and peacemaking processes (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2023[103]). However, the expediency of such approaches is open to question, as short-term gains, often focused on the security and economic dimensions, can evolve to become strategic losses (Box 2.5).
Hybrid tactics, multidimensional fragility and the targeting of security sectors
Russia has deployed hybrid interventions across the African continent that are implemented by both state and independent state-aligned actors such as Africa Corps (Ramani, 2023[104]), previously known as the Wagner group. Most of the contexts Russia engages with, including Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, experience severe to high political and security fragility, which is often associated with authoritarian regimes or weak democratic institutions (Siegle, 2023[105]). Operationally, the focus is on 1) undermining human and societal resilience while at the same time protecting specific security institutions and economic factors for resilience through elite co-option (Siegle, 2023[105]); 2) creating barriers to internal regime challengers, or “coup-proofing” (Plichta, 2024[106]); 3) repressing protests and/or fighting against insurgents; and 4) securing access to renewable and non-renewable natural resources, particularly critical minerals and hydrocarbon assets. Since the escalation of the war in Ukraine, this focus has also partly facilitated Russia’s sanctions evasion strategy. Its interventions in Africa have often been calibrated to exploit security vacuums through the manipulation of the information ecosystem with disinformation campaigns, election interference, support for coup leaders and to extraconstitutional claims on power. Russian disinformation campaigns, principally though not exclusively focused on Central and West Africa, have targeted at least 22 contexts (including 16 exposed to high and extreme fragility) and account for nearly 40% of all disinformation campaigns in 2023-24 in Africa (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2024[107]).
What can be learned from Russian hybrid tactics?
Russia’s capitalisation of opportunities for “quick, transitory gains” in contexts that are plagued by high political and security fragility (Galeotti, 2021[108]) and its attempts to influence contexts’ internal political settlements offer insights into what targeted and transactional interventions can achieve. Russia’s instrumentalisation of fragility further reflects a narrow focus informed by the symbiotic relationship between the Kremlin, oligarchs and organised criminal groups (Caparini, 2022[25]). However, despite the prevailing narrative, Russian influence and success have been mixed, especially where the emphasis on security sector assistance in the absence of governance measures has led to volatile outcomes, as shown in the following examples:
Northern Mozambique. The Wagner Group’s security intervention in Cabo Delgado province against Islamist militant groups lasted less than two months due to military failures, leading to its rapid withdrawal (Ramani, 2023[104]).
Madagascar. Russia’s attempt to support several opposition candidates in Madagascar’s 2018 elections was primarily motivated by its interest in the country’s chromium reserves and strategic location in the Indian Ocean (Ramani, 2023[104]). The Russian efforts failed, and the newly elected president, Andry Rajoelina, refused Russian offers of support in the aftermath of the election.
Central African Republic. The country has been described as a laboratory for Russia to perfect its methods (Valade and Di Roma, 2022[109]). In exchange for access to natural resources, Russia provided military and political support to President Touadéra through the Wagner Group, including supplying a national security advisor, and paramilitary and civilian trainers for the Central African Republic president. Their access to natural resources has not gone uncontested, especially at local levels, where the Wagner Group has used widespread violence against civilians around mining areas. Russian soft power initiatives and disinformation campaigns – for instance through the popular station Radio Lengo Songo now on a sanctions list, which has offered pro-Russian views (Stanyard, Vircoulon and Rademeyer, 2023[110]) – have complemented the security support.
Lessons on security sector resilience in Ukraine
Though Ukraine’s fragility levels are increasing, the fact that it continues to be classified with medium to low fragility speaks to its underlying resilience, as demonstrated by its security sector. Since 2014 and in the face of a clear threat from Russia, Ukraine has achieved remarkable security sector governance progress across education, training, and organisational control for its military and police forces. Donor assistance and civil society mobilisation were key to these achievements (Beliakova and Detzner, 2023, p. 6[111]). In particular, the strengthening of its civilian oversight and control of the security sector, now tested in war, contrasts with the short-term and transactional delivery of security sector assistance across Africa and in a different way with Russian security sector governance weaknesses, especially related to command and control and pervasive corruption (Beliakova and Detzner, 2023, p. 6[111]). Though Russia retains an advantage in terms of military mass, the fact that Ukraine has been able to withstand three years of conventional war to the degree that it has points to the geostrategic value of building resilience across development, peace and security structures.
Source: Ramani (2023[104]), Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender?; Siegle (2023[105]), “Intervening to undermine democracy in Africa: Russia's playbook for influence”, https://africacenter.org/spotlight/intervening-to-undermine-democracy-in-africa-russias-playbook-for-influence/; Plichta (2024[106]), “Russia’s mercenaries are bolstering autocratic regimes in the Sahel”, https://theloop.ecpr.eu/russias-mercenaries-are-bolstering-autocratic-regimes-in-the-sahel/; Africa Center for Strategic Studies (2024[107]), Mapping a Surge of Disinformation in Africa, https://africacenter.org/spotlight/mapping-a-surge-of-disinformation-in-africa/; Galeotti (2021[108]), “Active measures: Russia's covert global reach", https://www.marshallcenter.org/en/publications/marshall-center-books/russias-global-reach-security-and-statecraft-assessment/chapter-14-active-measures-russias-covert-global-reach; Caparini (2022[25]), Conflict, Governance and Organized Crime: Complex Challenges for UN Stabilization Operations, https://doi.org/10.55163/NOWM6453; Valade and Di Roma (2022[109]), “Comment la Centrafrique est devenue le laboratoire de la propagande russe en Afrique”, https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2022/06/08/comment-la-centrafrique-est-devenue-le-laboratoire-de-la-propagande-russe-en-afrique_6129431_3212.html; Stanyard, Vircoulon and Rademeyer (2023[110]), The Grey Zone: Russia's Military, Mercenary and Criminal Engagement in Africa, https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/russia-in-africa/; Beliakova and Detzner (2023[111]), Security Sector Governance and Reform in Ukraine, https://peacerep.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/SSG-Report-v3-FINAL-.pdf.
Violence is increasing for its economic expediency
While fatalities from organised violence are concentrated in high and extreme fragility contexts, some of the highest homicide rates are found in middle-income contexts exhibiting medium to low fragility. According to 2021 homicide data, which are the most recently available and complete, only one of the ten contexts on the 2025 fragility framework with the highest homicide rates are classified as exposed to high and extreme fragility. Homicide rates are highest in LAC and sub-Saharan Africa, though rates vary across contexts within the regions, with the highest rates being largely urban phenomena with high geographical concentration. Ajzenman and Jaitman (2016[112]), for instance, estimated that 50% of crimes happening in five cities in Latin American contexts were concentrated in 3.0-7.5% of street segments. A UN global study of homicides published in 2023 found that in LAC more than 50% of homicides are linked to organised crime; the victims and main perpetrators are young men; and most homicides are perpetrated using firearms (UN, 2023, p. 3[113]). Weapons are acquired through a variety of means: from stockpiles left over from civil wars (e.g. in El Salvador and Guatemala), obtained in collusion with state and private security groups (e.g. illicit sales), and purchased in illicit markets whose existence is facilitated by the sales of legal and illegal firearms, including 3-D printed weapons (Lazaro, 2024, p. 5[114]).
Note: Data from 2021 was chosen as it had a larger number of contexts with available data compared to 2022 and 2023.
Source: Igarapé Institute (2024[115]), Homicide Monitor, dataset, https://homicide.igarape.org.br/.
The political and economic expediency of violence varies by context, but certain common elements can be highlighted. For example, the largest cocaine-producing contexts and the main exit points for cocaine exports are located in LAC, and violence has flared when trade routes and networks have changed such as when they expanded to port cities in Costa Rica and Ecuador (International Crisis Group, 2023[116]). Beyond the cocaine trade, criminal organisations have also spread and diversified their activities to encompass extortion, including. in the Northern Triangle, environmental crime and, in some contexts, other types of narcotics trade. At the same time, institutional weakness has allowed organised crime groups to impose criminal governance in certain areas and to infiltrate state institutions and influence elections, notably through violence, in other contexts (Muggah, 2017[117]). Economic factors of fragility – the high level of wealth and social inequalities in Latin America, urban poverty due to poor-quality economic growth, and youth unemployment – have likely facilitated recruitment to organised criminal groups and/or armed groups (Muggah, 2017[117]). In parallel, violence has increased in the region despite democratic transitions and economic growth in some contexts, and attempts by these contexts’ governments to control crime have often led to worse outcomes (Vilalta, 2020[118]).
In other words, a decline in violence has not necessarily accompanied declines in political and economic fragility. Jamaica, a context experiencing medium to low fragility, is an example. It has made progress on macroeconomic reforms (World Bank, 2024[119]) and security sector reforms (Asmann, 2021[120]) as part of a difficult development and peace transition. But these have not yet had an impact on the political economy of Jamaica’s gang violence, which is responsible for most homicides (Dalby, 2022[121]).
In conflict-affected contexts, widespread corruption, breakdown in the rule of law, limited government oversight and opportunities to infiltrate as well as collude with state-based actors all offer opportunities for different types of criminal actors to expand their economic ambitions through violent means. Many non-state armed groups profit from illicit activities to finance their armed struggle, gaining political power to “protect and expand their economic rackets”, while in other situations, criminal organisations enter the formal political space (Jackson, Weigand and Tindall, 2023[122]). Myanmar offers an example of how criminal activities can flourish in conflict-affected areas. Following the military coup and outbreak of civil war in 2021, large-scale, illegal rare earth mining escalated (Global Witness, 2024[123]), heroin production doubled (UN, 2023[124]), and human trafficking increased to service prison-like cyber-scam centres, many in borderland regions between Myanmar and Thailand and controlled by the Myanmar military or ethnic militias affiliated with the military (Taylor, 2024[125]).
The presence of organised violence compromises policy responses to poverty and incentivises negative coping capacities
Nearly 40% of the multidimensional poor, or 455 million people, reside in contexts marked by fragility, conflict or violence (OPHI/UNDP, 2024[126]). The experience of organised violence directly impacts on the social, political and economic order, setting the stage for cycles of exclusion and violence. On one level, the existence of organised violence can deny support to isolated or targeted communities suffering from poverty, which compounds over time as “conflict debt” (Mueller and Techasunthornwat, 2020, p. 2[127]). On another level, organised violence intersects with a variety of pre-existing and new drivers of fragility that can compel positive and negative reactions. As seen with the evolution of the conflict economy in Sudan (Chapter 4), local institutions and the private sector can exhibit significant economic resilience. However, in almost all cases, these factors of resilience are insufficient to negate the broader impact of conflict on poverty while it continues. Nor can they mitigate the impacts where the intersections between conflict and poverty are much more complex, linking weak state capacity, a weak private sector, a lack of security on the part of the state or other non-state actors, weak resilience, low levels of societal trust and compliance, and polarisation, whether driven by ideological, ethnic, linguistic or religious factors (Mueller and Techasunthornwat, 2020, p. 10[127]). The importance of tailoring policy responses to these complex contexts is discussed in Chapter 3.
Note: Organised violence-affected contexts are those that experience state, non-state and one-sided violence with above 25 fatalities for 2023. A context is commodity dependent when more than 60% of its total merchandise exports are composed of commodities. There were 22 hunger hotspots in the outlook period from November 2024 to May 2025. Higher gender inequality refers to a score equal or higher to 0.5 on UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index. Contexts most exposed to climate change are those that rank > 144 on ND-GAIN Exposure in the Notre Dame - Global Adaptation Initiative Country Index. Secondary and core peace are defined in Annex A. At high risk or in debt distress refers to contexts in these categories on the Joint Bank-Fund Debt Sustainability Framework for Low Income Countries. 10 contexts with high and extreme fragility have over 1 000 battle deaths in 2023 but there are eight wars in these contexts.
Source: Davies, et al. (2024[18]), “Organized violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups”, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241262912; Sundberg and Melander (2013[85]), “Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343313484347; UNDP (2024[80]), Gender inequality index (GII), database, https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/composite-indices; UNCTAD (2023[128]), “The state of commodity dependence 2023”, https://unctad.org/publication/state-commodity-dependence-2023; FAO/WFP (2024[129]), “Hunger Hotspots: FAO/WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity, November 2024 to May 2025 outlook, https://www.wfp.org/publications/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-november-2024-may-2025; World Bank Group (2024[130]), Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA), overall debt distress (dataset), https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/debt-toolkit/dsa; Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (2024[131]), “Notre-Dame – Global Adaptation Initiative Country Index”, https://gain.nd.edu/our-work/country-index/; IPC (2024[132]) “Integrated Food Security Phase Classification”, https://www.ipcinfo.org/; OECD (2024[82]), OECD Data Explorer, Creditor Reporting System (flows) database, http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/z1.
Multidimensional fragility, conflict and persecution are driving forced displacement to unprecedented levels. In 2023, more than 126 million people were refugees or internally displaced, according to the UN Refugee Agency (2024[133]) (Infographic 2.6 gives detailed methodology). This constituted a 32% increase in the number of people forced to flee their homes since 2021, reflecting the devastating upheavals caused by the war in Sudan, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and armed conflict across the Middle East during the intervening two years. Not only are more people than ever forcibly displaced, but the entrapment of populations in war zones is also a growing phenomenon.
Over 100 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) fled from contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, representing 80% of all refugees and approximately 80% of all forcibly displaced persons (Infographic 2.6).18 Moreover, a record-breaking 2.7 million people applied for asylum in OECD countries in 2023, a 30% increase over the number of new applicants in 2022. Altogether, OECD countries granted international protection to 676 000 refugees in 2023, 15% more than the previous year and the highest level since 2017. Notably, four of the top five origin contexts for asylum applicants to the OECD in 2023 are classified as exposed to high or extreme fragility: Venezuela (270 000 applicants), Syria (171 000), Afghanistan (150 000) and Haiti (76 000) (OECD, 2024, pp. 12-39[134]). Nonetheless, even with the sharp rise in refugees to OECD countries, it is the contexts experiencing high and extreme levels of fragility that still host the vast majority of the world’s refugees and IDPs – all in all, 81 million people, almost two thirds (64%) of the total forcibly displaced population worldwide. Contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility host approximately 80% of all IDPs. The majority of all refugees and IDPs who are living in low- and middle-income contexts have been displaced for more than five years.
Under international and many national laws, states must protect forcibly displaced populations, either by granting asylum to those fleeing across borders or by safeguarding the rights of their own citizens who are internally displaced. Hosting forcibly displaced persons can reinforce a context’s pre-existing fragilities and carries an economic, political and societal cost. In the short term, economic impacts are subnational, mainly affecting urban areas, areas in the vicinity of refugee camps, and local communities hosting the displaced as they put pressure on social service systems and natural resources. In the medium to long term, distribution and inclusion-oriented policies can reduce the financial cost of hosting such populations and possibly offer positive opportunities for the socio-economic integration of both the displaced and host communities.
In the host contexts that experience the greatest fragility, the forcibly displaced often face a capability trap whereby neither the state nor the host community has the capacity to offer social or economic opportunities. Even with inclusive policies, fragility limits realistic opportunities for practical solutions, such as socio-economic empowerment of the displaced.
Note: Forced displacement refers to the totality of IDPs and refugees at the end of 2023, including the following population groups: refugees, asylum seekers, other people in need of international protection, refugees under the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Mandate, conflict IDPs and disaster-related IDPs. Refugee flows at the bottom only include recognized refugees and asylum seekers. Rest of the world refers to contexts in medium to low fragility and those off the framework.
Source: International Displacement Monitoring Centre (2024[135]), Global Internal Displacement Database, https://www.internal-displacement.org/database/displacement-data/; UNHCR (2024[136]), Refugee Data Finder, https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics.
Political, security and economic interests affect solutions to forced displacement
Forced displacement first and foremost constitutes a human rights and humanitarian problem. Historically, responses have primarily relied on humanitarian aid, but there is increasing recognition of the value of development and peace approaches and progress in deploying them (OECD, 2024[137]; INCAF/OECD, 2023[138]). The political economy of forced displacement plays an important role in shaping responses to displacement, with possibly harmful consequences.
Parties to a conflict, including state and non-state actors, may use the forced displacement of populations for specific security or political objectives. Such instrumentalisation can include the deliberate emptying or crowding of specific territories (e.g. forcing refugees into or out of internal displacement camps or settlements) to extend security control as well as attempting to change the ethnic make-up of an area for political purposes (Steele, Schwartz and Lichtenheld, 2024[139]).
Governments of host contexts also may try to use the presence of refugee populations to bargain with international partners for certain political outcomes such as legitimising or preserving the power of authoritarian regimes, gaining international recognition, or improving relations with foreign partners. Economic outcomes in the form of maximising external development finance can also be forms of instrumentalisation of refugee and migrant presence (Koch, Weber and Werenfels, 2018[140]) playing on perceived fears of onward migration to countries that provide development co-operation.
Populist perceptions about possible negative economic consequences of the presence of displaced populations also may be instrumentalised in local public discourse for political purposes. This can raise tensions and trigger restrictive or securitised approaches to forced displacement. Illicit smuggling and trafficking networks may take advantage of displaced people who are trying to reach countries of asylum or other destinations but are finding legal pathways restricted.
The combination of slow economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, persistently high inflation and rising financing costs form a trio of challenges for contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility. On average, incomes in contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility stopped catching up with those facing medium to low fragility around 2015 (World Bank, 2024[48]). Contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility accounted for 72% of the world’s extreme poor in 2024, a fact that underscores their importance in the global fight against poverty. In a higher interest rate environment globally, public debt levels and debt servicing costs increased. Creditor structures have become more fragmented, complicating the process of addressing debt challenges. FDI has been decreasing since 2012, in line with a global downward trend, while remittances offer a lifeline to many households and account for a substantial share of GDP in many contexts. Fiscal space is a major challenge for contexts facing high and extreme fragility, which reduces their capacity to respond to shocks, and governments have struggled to fiscally consolidate. With financing costs increasing, many of these contexts face a difficult balancing act between cutting expenditure and raising revenue, choices that can have knock-on impacts in terms of social unrest and the resilience of the population.
Fragility can itself impact the global economy, as seen in recent disruptions in global trade. Wheat prices increased in every country across the globe as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with large wheat-importing countries being acutely affected (Devadoss and Ridley, 2024[141]). Normally, about 15 percent of global trade passes through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, but since 2023 and the start of the escalation of conflicts across the Middle East, the Houthi regime in Yemen has attacked more than 80 ships passing through the Red Sea, seizing one and sinking two (Chapter 1). An international maritime coalition is present in the Red Sea, protecting passing ships from Houthi attacks (Gambrell, 2024[142]), but as a consequence of the Houthi attacks, many shipping companies have rerouted their ships around the Horn of Africa, and traffic through the Suez Canal and Bab El-Mandeb Street has decreased significantly (Bogetic et al., 2024[143]), increasing travel time by ten days or more on average and driving up costs. The Panama Canal, also essential to world trade, had to reduce traffic in 2024 due to an ongoing drought that resulted in lower water levels and is associated with environmental fragility (Kamali et al., 2024[144]).
The higher the level of fragility, the harder the recovery has been from the pandemic
As noted throughout this report, high and extreme fragility can be experienced by many types of economies. Between 2010 and 2023, Bangladesh and Ethiopia were the top growth performers with annualised growth rates of 8.8% and 10.1% respectively, while Yemen and Equatorial Guinea experienced the lowest annualised growth rates of -5.9% and -5.2% respectively (World Bank, 2024[48]). Of the 61 contexts classified on the 2025 fragility framework as experiencing high and extreme fragility, 34 are middle income and 26 are low income. One context, Venezuela, is unclassified (World Bank, 2024[145]). In general, growth rates in contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility continue to be lower, on average, and more volatile than in contexts with medium to low fragility (OECD, 2022[146]). This is the opposite of what could be expected through theories of convergence and catch-up growth.
Growth remains flat or even negative since the pandemic. Contexts with high and extreme fragility had similar or smaller decreases in per capita GDP growth than the rest of the world during the pandemic. But unlike contexts with medium to low fragility, those experiencing high and extreme fragility have largely missed out on the recovery. Median per capita GDP growth in contexts experiencing high fragility has stabilised at about 2%. Contexts exposed to extreme fragility experienced the COVID-19 shock from an already negative position, and their median per capita growth rate has not been positive since 2015 (Figure 2.14). 32% of contexts facing high and extreme fragility are poorer in 2023 than in 2019 – 18 out of the 57 contexts for which data is available (World Bank, 2024[48]).
Note: Median GDP per capita growth (annual %) was used from the September 2024 World Development Indicators database.
Source: Author’s calculations based on the World Bank (2024[48]), World Development Indicators, https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators.
Post COVID, economies exposed to fragility are still experiencing welfare losses that leave deep scarring on economies, societies and potentially politics. Low- and middle-income countries will likely suffer more severe long-term losses due to the effects of school closures on human capital formation (Decerf et al., 2024[147]). In the wake of the pandemic, global poverty rates increased, reversing a decade-long trend of falling poverty rates. This reversal occurred in all regions except for LAC (Castaneda Aguilar et al., 2024[148]). While global extreme poverty dropped to pre-pandemic levels in 2024, the concentration of extreme poverty in contexts facing high and extreme fragility has increased (Chrimes et al., 2024[149])
Consistent export-led growth and domestic market development have proven elusive in many contexts of high and extreme fragility. Historically, export-oriented growth has been an important source of foreign exchange and revenue for countries that have traded their way to increased prosperity, such as those in Southeast Asia. Current account balances can provide a snapshot, with a deficit generally indicating that a context is importing (and paying for) more goods than it is exporting (and earning from).19 Contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility continue to accrue current account deficits: while the median deficit has reduced somewhat for contexts experiencing extreme fragility since 2020, the median current account deficit for contexts facing high fragility has increased from 2.5% in 2021 to 4% in 2022 (World Bank, 2024[48]). Contexts facing high and extreme fragility tend to trade less, and across a less diversified range of products, than contexts facing medium to low fragility. In terms of value, in 2022, two-thirds of the exports from contexts facing high or extreme fragility are minerals, or food, and animal products (United Nations, 2024[150]).
Contexts facing high and extreme fragility tend to have less-diversified economies, a reliance on imported consumption products, and a narrow set of export sectors that are prone to volatile commodity prices. There are 26 contexts exposed to high or extreme fragility which are commodity dependent to energy (10), agriculture (10) and mining (6) (UNCTAD, 2023[128]). The current phase of exceptional volatility in commodity prices makes sustainable growth even harder, impacting on government finances, leading to uneven public investment, and affecting domestic inflation (Mohommad et al., 2023[151]).
High inflation rates persist, particularly for food and energy items that represent a large share of people’s consumption in contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, affecting households’ welfare and adding to social pressures. Contexts with high fragility also have experienced a higher peak and a slower retreat of inflation than have contexts experiencing medium to low fragility, while inflation in contexts exposed to extreme fragility continues to rise. Global inflation was driven by massive fiscal stimulus packages during the pandemic, a surge in economic activity after the pandemic, disruptions in supply chains, and skyrocketing commodity prices especially for food and energy. Median inflation for contexts with high fragility peaked at 10% in 2022 and declined to 7.7% in 2023. The increase in inflation in contexts experiencing extreme fragility was smaller in 2022, but that increase continued through 2023 (Figure 2.15).
Note: Median inflation, consumer prices (annual %) was used from the September 2024 World Development Indicators database.
Source: Author’s calculations based on the World Bank (2024[48]), World Development Indicators, https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators.
However, inflation rates vary considerably across contexts. In 2023, for instance, Lebanon experienced an inflation rate of 221%, while the rate for Burkina Faso was just 0.74%. 15 of the 61 contexts in high and extreme fragility had double-digit inflation. As food and energy items represent a significant share of households’ consumption in contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility, their purchasing power is more affected by higher inflation rates in these categories. At the same time, the fiscal pressures faced by governments can translate into pressure on subsidies for basic foods and fuel, potentially impacting in turn on social unrest.
Total FDI to contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility has been declining since it peaked in 2012 in line with a global downward trend. These contexts received less than 5% of global net FDI inflows in 2023 though they represented a quarter of the world’s population. On average, contexts facing high and extreme fragility have received less than 2% of yearly global net FDI inflows since 1990. Since 2010, developing contexts that experience medium to low fragility have consistently seen a higher net FDI inflow as a share of GDP than contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility (World Bank, 2024[48]).
The lower FDI flows are a symptom, not a cause, of fragility, however. While Angola and Iraq experienced significant disinvestment, most but not all contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility had a positive net FDI inflow in 2023, and their share of FDI is approximately equal to their share of global GDP. Subdued investment in high and extreme fragility contexts is indicative of their challenging business environments and limited investment opportunities (Figure 2.16).
Note: Foreign direct investment, net inflows (BoP, current US$) from the September 2024 World Development Indicators database.
Source: Author’s calculations based on the World Bank (2024[48]), World Development Indicators, https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators.
Remittances continue to be an important source of foreign exchange in contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility and a lifeline to many households (Figure 2.17). Remittance flows to these contexts exceeded USD 134 billion in 2023 compared with USD 70 billion in 2010.
While contexts experiencing medium to low fragility receive far greater remittance flows by volume, the amounts received by contexts facing high and extreme fragility are more important economically, representing an aggregate 4.3% of their GDP versus 1.4% of GDP for the contexts facing medium to low fragility. This proportion varies a lot by context and by year: for some individual high and extreme fragility contexts, remittances constitute a much larger share of national income. Remittances constituted more than 20% of GDP for 6 such contexts in 2023 and more than 10% of GDP for 14 contexts.
The volume of these flows can change depending on developments within the contexts themselves as well as in the contexts where remittances are sent from. For example, remittance flows to Tajikistan represented nearly 40% of its GDP in 2023, reflecting a surge of remittances from Russia due to the relocation of Russian companies and citizens, the appreciating Russian ruble exchange rate at the time, and higher demand in Russia for migrant workers (Kim, 2023[152]). In Nicaragua, remittances accounted for more than 25% of GDP or USD 4 billion, as high political and economic pressure drove many to migrate elsewhere, primarily to the United States.
Source: World Bank (2024[153]), Migration and Development Brief 40 – June 2024 dataset, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099714008132436612/pdf/IDU1a9cf73b51fcad1425a1a0dd1cc8f2f3331ce.pdf.
Increasing growth and decreasing inequality are both needed to increase welfare and resilience
Contexts exposed to extreme and high fragility accounted for 72% of the world’s extreme poor20 in 2024. Poverty remains highly concentrated, geographically and socioeconomically, in contexts with high and extreme fragility, and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for nearly 67% of the world’s extreme poor (Christoph Lakner, 2024[154]). Current projections suggest that by 2040, this share of the world’s extreme poor living in contexts with high and extreme fragility could surge to 92%.21
Contexts experiencing extreme fragility and conflict carry the highest poverty burden. To achieve broad development goals, both extreme and moderate poverty must be reduced. One-fourth of the population in contexts with high and extreme fragility live below the extreme poverty line of USD 2.15 per day. Even above this threshold, income security is elusive and fragile; 78% of the population in these contexts live on less than USD 6.85 per day, the poverty line for upper middle-income countries, meaning that even small shocks can have outsized impacts on welfare.
Despite the decline in global inequalities between countries, income inequality within countries has increased over the past two decades and remains one of the most pressing issues in global development. Within most contexts with high and extreme fragility, income inequality has increased considerably. In the Middle East and North Africa region, home to six contexts with high or extreme fragility, the top 10% of earners capture nearly 58% of total income; by comparison, the top 10% in Europe holds roughly 36% (Chancel et al., 2022, p. 11[72]).
Wealth inequality often has a more enduring impact on societies than income inequality. Assets, property and inheritance tend to be passed down by generation, remaining concentrated within a small segment of the global population. According to the 2022 World Inequality Report, the top 10% of the global population controls 76% of the world’s wealth while the bottom 50%, including the population in all contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, owns merely 2% (Chancel et al., 2022, p. 3[72]). The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated inequalities. Persistent disparities, particularly in contexts lacking progressive taxation and redistributive policies, continue to reinforce economic divides within societies, underscoring the need for policy reforms to achieve more balanced economic growth. This pattern is evident not only in contexts exposed to high and extreme and high fragility but also in those with medium to low fragility. Given these trends and in light of projections that GDP growth rates will stagnate, reducing extreme poverty will be challenging.
Concentration of wealth among elites results in their disproportionate economic power, which frequently translates into political influence. In environments where elites capture political processes, a concentration of power can foster corruption and lack of accountability and erode democratic processes, degrading political and societal resilience. Analysis by the World Bank (World Bank, 2024[155]) and others also suggests that reducing inequality and implementing redistributive measures contribute to poverty reduction even in slow-growth environments.
The level of non-income inequalities in societies are as important as income levels to tracking progress towards reducing and eliminating poverty. In addition to monetary deprivation, unequal access to quality education, healthcare, political processes, and physical and legal security perpetuates the cycle of poverty by depriving individuals of the tools they need to improve their socioeconomic status (Spicker, 2020[156]). Constraints on access to justice in high and extreme fragility contexts affect a range of issues from personal and property rights to the availability of formal or informal dispute resolution mechanisms (OECD, 2022[146]). Such limitations tend to entrench elite capture and the inequalities that benefit the ruling elite in the short term and also limit a society’s ability to increase the human capital needed to exit fragility over the longer term. Regional differences in multidimensional poverty mirror the differences in rates of extreme poverty. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the high rate of extreme poverty can be explained not only by populations’ lack of monetary assets but also by indicators such as low rates of educational enrolment and access to sanitation. Considering deprivation as a multifaceted phenomenon is important when considering policy options that will improve people’s welfare, even if the policy will not immediately raise consumption levels (World Bank, 2024[155]). Ending poverty and reducing inequalities are interlinked (OECD, 2024, p. 20[60]), and in high and extreme fragility contexts, the success of policy options such as social safety nets, rural development, closing gender income gaps, and designing equitable revenue generation depends on the ability of policy designers to navigate the combinations of fragility that affect policy delivery.
Note: Author’s own calculations for ODA going towards poverty reduction.
Source: OECD (2024[82]), OECD Data Explorer, Creditor Reporting System (flows) database, http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/z1.
Note: The figure comparing multidimensional poverty index and extreme poverty is based on population percentages in 2022.
Source: Lakner and al. (2024[154]), Reproducibility package (partial data and code) for Poverty, Prosperity and Planet Report 2024 (datasets), https://reproducibility.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/189; World Bank (2024[155]) , Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024: Pathways Out of the Polycrisis, https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42211; OPHI/UNDP (2024[126]), Multidimensional Poverty Index 2024: Poverty amid conflict; mpireport2024en.pdf; OPHI and UNDP (2024[157]), National Results MPI 2024, https://ophi.org.uk/global-mpi/2024; UNDP (2024[158]), Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (HDI), https://hdr.undp.org/inequality-adjusted-human-development-index#/indicies/IHDI.
Contexts in high and extreme fragility are still experiencing a fiscal squeeze
High and extreme fragility are associated with very limited fiscal space, which reduces the capacity to respond to shocks (Infographic 2.8). Even with the international support provided, contexts with high and extreme fragility were not able to expand their public spending during the COVID-19 crisis to the same extent as ODA-eligible and non-ODA-eligible contexts experiencing medium to low fragility For example, for contexts facing high and extreme fragility, the median primary balance22 expanded to 3% and 2.7% respectively at the peak of the pandemic, indicating a lower level of fiscal stimulus than the same figures for ODA-eligible and non-ODA eligible contexts facing low to medium fragility (5.9% and 4.7% respectively) (IMF, 2024[159]).
Contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility also struggled more with fiscal consolidation after the crisis. Their median primary balance has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, remaining at -2.4% and -0.1 respectively in 2022. Fiscal challenges increase fragility for all contexts, but for contexts facing high and extreme fragility fiscal constraints can be binding due to their limited fiscal capacity, low domestic resource mobilisation, rising debt levels, and constraints on borrowing (IMF, 2024[160]).
Limited fiscal space is closely connected to the tax-to-GDP ratio. The median ratio among contexts experiencing high fragility in 2022 stood at 12.5%, and 8.7% for contexts experiencing extreme fragility – both well below 15%, a generally accepted level required for effective state functioning and development (UNU-WIDER, 2023[161]). 42 contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility had ratios below 15% and 20 contexts were below 10%. Low tax-to-GDP not only results in a low level of tax collection in a limited fiscal space, but is also connected to the question of legitimacy of state institutions in that it affects citizens’ expectations of provision of public services, their participation in political processes and the functioning of the social contract (Besley and Mueller, 2021[162]; Weigel, 2020[163]; OECD, 2022[146]). Moreover, there is evidence that conflict risks drop significantly when fiscal capacity increases (Besley and Mueller, 2021[162]) and that countries with strong fiscal institutions are able to protect public investment even in crises.
Fiscal reforms can increase the quality and efficiency of taxation and expenditure, freeing up resources to invest more in human and physical capital, enhance growth, and offer more targeted support to those in need. However, conflict sensitivity is needed. The reforms required to achieve more sustainable government financing and greater fiscal space can be highly politically and socially sensitive, for example if they involve changes to food and energy subsidies, social spending, civil service wages, tax increases, or the military apparatus (Mawejje, 2024[164]).
Note: Indicators include: median general government gross debt (% of GDP) at top, general government primary net lending borrowing (% of GDP) in the middle-left, tax-to-GDP ratio in the middle-right and median government interest payments (% of GDP). To treat missing data, the tax-to-GDP ratios were taken by calculating the most recent year of data availability for each context from 2012 onwards.
Source: Author’s calculations based on the World Bank (2024[48]), World Development Indicators, https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators; IMF (2024[159]), World Economic Outlook, database, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2024/October; UNU-WIDER (2023[161]), The Government Revenue Dataset, https://www.wider.unu.edu/project/grd-government-revenue-dataset.
Buffers provided during the COVID years have eroded
During the pandemic, historic steps were taken to frontload and reprioritise development funds and to provide international support to liquidity and debt sustainability, in particular through the USD 650 billion general allocation of Special Drawing Rights in 202123 (IMF, 2021[165]) and the Debt Service Suspension initiative of 2020-2124 (World Bank Group, 2022[166]).
These initiatives provided important buffers. In contexts of high and extreme fragility in 2021, international reserves increased to a median 5.5 months of import cover, i.e. the number of months those reserves could sustain continued imports without access to additional foreign currency. By 2022, median reserves dropped to four months of import cover, and seven contexts with high (6) and extreme fragility (1) had international reserves of less than three months – a threshold widely considered to be the minimum level of reserve coverage adequacy (World Bank, 2024[48]). Holding sufficient reserves will be an ever more important buffer against increasing shocks and may mitigate the impacts of exchange depreciation and high public debt (Coulibaly et al., 2024[167]).
Debt is a rapidly growing concern
The median debt-to-GDP ratio of contexts with high and extreme fragility has increased markedly since 2018 from approximately 42% to 50% in 2022. While the median debt-to-GDP ratio remains below the levels seen before the debt relief initiatives in the 1990s and 2000s, the share of their revenue that governments spend on debt interest payments is increasing. Debt interest payments by contexts experiencing high fragility have increased sharply since 2010, while interest payments by contexts experiencing extreme fragility have increased more gradually, reflecting their more limited access to global capital markets. Ten contexts experiencing high fragility dedicate more than 10% of their revenue to interest payments (World Bank Group, n.d.[35]).
Joint World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt sustainability assessments of low-income countries found that at least 25 contexts experiencing high and extreme fragility are in or at high risk of overall debt distress. Six of these contexts are assessed as having unsustainable debt – that is, the steps needed to stabilise debt levels are not considered economically or politically feasible – being Djibouti, Ethiopia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe25 (World Bank, 2024[130]).
These figures may well be undercounts. While data coverage and international reporting are more established for external debt, some contexts such as Mozambique are increasingly resorting to domestic debt, including high-interest bank loans and arrears, which can lead to additional vulnerabilities for the public sector and risk crowding out domestic financing for the private sector (IMF, 2024[168]; IMF, 2024[169]). Further, public debt levels are often underreported, and hidden debts are usually only revealed during defaults, downturns or through an IMF programme. Hidden debts can include opaque lines of credit, non-disclosed sovereign guarantees and debts contracted through state-owned enterprises (Horn et al., 2023[170]; Saavedra, Francisco and Rivetti, 2024[171]).
The changing profile of debt in contexts of high and extreme fragility underscores the challenges of successfully navigating diverse and sufficient types of financing for development, as was highlighted in the 2022 edition of the States of Fragility report (OECD, 2022[146]). Globally, changes to the structure of debt, especially the growing role of private creditors, bondholders, and non-Paris Club members, have been well documented (Chabert, Cerisola and Hakura, 2022[172]). These same changes have implications for fragility (Box 2.6) and are visible in contexts facing extreme fragility and in a more pronounced way in contexts facing high fragility, given the additional instruments (e.g. loans, bond markets) that they have had access to, especially prior to COVID-19 crisis.
These changes to the availability of different types of debt have allowed the public and private sectors26 access to a greater volume and diversity of development finance. There can be significant opportunity costs to not making use of these new sources of finance – or from holding too high a level of foreign reserve – in the form of foregone investments in development. As Kharas and Dooley (2021[173]) put it, the dilemma for many emerging markets and developing countries is whether to “borrow and risk a debt crisis, or choose austerity and risk a development crisis”.
The changing profile of debt can also come with often-higher borrowing costs, more opaque terms, repayment schedules that are harder to change in the event of a shock. Only one private creditor participated in the DSSI, for example (World Bank Group, 2022[166]) and even when mechanisms are in place, borrowers are likely to be hesitant to make use of them for fear of triggering a credit risk downgrade, further reducing access to and increasing the cost of market borrowing in future (Fitch Ratings, 2021[174]) Such changes in debt composition can also complicate and protract debt restructuring processes, though some progress has been made to improve the speed of restructurings 27 (Pazarbasioglu, 2024[175]).
The borrowing structure of public and publicly guaranteed debt owed to external creditors by contexts facing high fragility has changed markedly over the 2010-22 period. While the share of bilateral debt has remained roughly stable, the share of private debt has increased and the share of multilateral debt has decreased. As of 2022, China is the largest bilateral creditor to contexts experiencing high fragility and the second-largest creditor overall after the International Development Association (IDA). Among bilateral creditors, the share of debt owed to members of the Paris Club has halved, while the share owed to China has almost tripled. The IDA and the IMF remain the largest of the multilateral creditors. As of 2022, contexts exposed to high fragility owe more than a quarter of their external debt to private creditors, an increase of ten percentage points since 2010. Most of that debt is in bonds.
For contexts facing extreme fragility, the borrowing structure has remained more stable. Bilateral debt plays a much more prominent role than it does for high fragility contexts, and the limited share of private debt reflects the lack of access for extreme fragility contexts to this private market instrument. The IMF is the largest multilateral and overall creditor, and the role of IDA has markedly declined (Figure 2.19).
Source: World Bank (2024[176]), International Debt Statistics Database, https://databank.worldbank.org/source/international-debt-statistics.
From Valencia in Spain to Baghlan in Afghanistan climate hazards and disasters are increasing and devastating communities across many of the 177 contexts on the OECD multidimensional fragility framework. Climate change disproportionately affect contexts with high and extreme fragility, exacerbating the impacts of extreme weather events, overwhelming limited factors of resilience and compounding other drivers of fragility across all dimensions. Of the 27 contexts identified by the Institute for Economics and Peace (2024, p. 17[177]) as ecological threat hotspots, 11 are classified as experiencing high fragility and 16 as experiencing extreme fragility on the OECD fragility framework.
Bracing for the fragility of climate tipping points
Six out of nine interconnected earth system planetary boundaries are now significantly breached, moving humanity away from the mostly stable conditions of the past 10 000 years (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 2024[178]). 2024 was also the warmest year on record – more than 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels (World Meteorological Organization, 2025[179]), thereby superseding the 1.5°C long-term objective set in the Paris Agreement. Evidence on climate and environmental drivers of fragility is growing, strengthening the case for anticipating the impact of climate tipping points thinking through their significant implications for conflict prevention and crisis preparedness (Chapter 3). Recent research on climate tipping points suggests that 15 out of 16 identified tipping points are active28 (McKay et al., 2022[180]). Triggering climate tipping points risks disrupting the climate on a global scale, but as with the cascading impact of the COVID-19 pandemic the impact is likely to fall disproportionately on contexts with high and extreme fragility (OECD, 2024, p. 10[181]). Where fragility is already concentrated, such as in Central America, the potential direct and cascading impact of extreme heat will significantly disrupt the balance of risks and sources of resilience, even in tropical areas that traditionally encounter high levels of extreme heat during certain times of the year (OECD, 2024, pp. 35-36[181]). This will compound existing sources of fragility across all dimensions particularly among vulnerable populations in rural areas and for indigenous communities, likely exacerbating food insecurity (Ley, 2023[182]).
Contexts facing higher levels of environmental fragility, including ecological threats are more likely to have higher levels of conflict but it is the manner of their interaction with sources of resilience that determines their impact on people and systems. The multiplier effect identified by the Institute for Economics and Peace (2024, p. 2[177]) crosscuts all dimensions of fragility, and its finding that water risk in sub-Saharan Africa is more closely correlated to weak governance and poor infrastructure than to low rainfall illustrates that combinations of fragility change from context to context. In this sense, the environmental risks are not just what the Institute calls “threat amplifiers” that can intensify ongoing conflicts, but are also fragility amplifiers that can feed multiple casual chains and feedback loops. As exemplified in the example on building climate resilience in sub-Saharan Africa (Chapter 4) responses for building resilience capacity are emerging but need to grow their reach and scale for visible impact in contexts with high and extreme fragility.
Acute food insecurity and multidimensional fragility go hand in hand
Ecological threats including climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity and water scarcity are strongly correlated as drivers of fragility. Additionally, for most contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility, deficiencies in their resilience to the impact of environmental fragility makes policies on adaptation and mitigation extremely challenging. The combined effect of these drivers of fragility are most visible in areas such as food security. Out of 22 contexts identified in November 2024 by the World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO/WFP, 2024[129]), 20 are exposed to high or extreme fragility. In seven of these, more than 1 million people were in Phase 4 Emergency or Phase 5 Catastrophe/Famine levels of food insecurity. The context with the most affected people by far was Sudan (6.4 million), followed by Myanmar, South Sudan and Haiti, each with more than 2 million people exposed to IPC Phase 4 or 5 levels of food insecurity. Nigeria, Somalia, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip each had over a million people exposed to emergency or catastrophe/famine levels of food insecurity, and the latter also had the highest number of people exposed to famine (FAO/WFP, 2024[129]).
For most contexts with high and extreme fragility, food systems are under immense pressure. Several factors are responsible including their slow recovery from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, the associated impact of food and energy price inflation, and the regionally specific impact of armed conflict. According to the Food Security Information Network, there are almost 282 million people in 59 countries and territories who are acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance (Global Network Against Food Crises, 2024, p. 9[183]); 43 of these contexts have high or extreme exposure to fragility. This trend was noted in previous editions of the States of Fragility reports, and the fact that it continues points to a critical failure to achieve progress on SDG 2 (zero hunger) for the contexts with the greatest need of assistance.
The intersection of climate and environmental fragility and security fragility often presents a unique set of challenges in contexts with high fragility and recent or ongoing experience of conflict. Fragility associated with conflict and armed violence was identified as the primary driver of hunger in many of these hunger hotspots, where it disrupted food systems, displaced populations and obstructed humanitarian access (FAO/WFP, 2024[129]). Evidence on the relationship between climate and conflict suggests that various forms of violence could increase under the projected warming scenarios and in light of the lack of projected impact adaptations and policy interventions to cope with the changing conditions. (VoxDev, 2024[184]). For example, in Afghanistan, the impact of drought and flooding goes hand in hand with falling agricultural yields that result from insufficient demining and the contamination attributable to munitions (Norwegian People's Aid, 2024[185]; Amini, 2024[186]).
The analysis in this chapter shows how politics, violence and economic trends connect with each other and with other drivers of risk and sources of resilience in various combinations across the different dimensions of fragility. The many ways these currents intersect result in a wide range of presentations of fragility. Very different types of contexts experience high or extreme fragility, and their fragilities influence and are influenced by those in contexts exposed to medium and low fragility (Figure 2.20). Applying this fragility analysis at a regional level can help deepen understanding of regional dynamics and the specific interplay of drivers of risk and sources of resilience. It can help show how approaches can be adapted to address different trends, including at the subnational level, for instance in border areas and river basins. Analysing fragility experienced by regions as well as individual contexts offers opportunities to think about how sources of resilience can be bolstered and exposure to risk mitigated or reduced (Chapter 3). Building on the analysis of the main trends in the 2025 multidimensional fragility framework, this section focuses on the state of fragility in Central Asia, Central America and Coastal West Africa. In these three very distinct regions, fragility manifests most plainly in relation to politics, violence and fragmentation but also through more complex connections across dimensions. Understanding fragility across and between contexts in each region can help tailor effective responses even where exposure is medium or low.
Note: Organised violence-affected contexts are those that experience state, non-state and one-sided violence with above 25 fatalities for 2023. A context is commodity dependent when more than 60% of its total merchandise exports are composed of commodities. There were 22 hunger hotspots in the outlook period from November 2024 to May 2025. Higher gender inequality refers to a score equal or higher to 0.5 on UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index. Contexts most exposed to climate change are those that rank > 144 on ND-GAIN Exposure in the Notre Dame - Global Adaptation Initiative Country Index. Autocracies are contexts classified as closed or electoral autocracies on V-DEM’s Regimes of the World grouping. Low human development refers to contexts with an HDI lower than 0.55. Extreme poverty refers to the USD 2.15 poverty line.
Source: Davies, et al. (2024[18]), “Organized violence 1989-2023, and the prevalence of organized crime groups”, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433241262912; Sundberg and Melander (2013[85]), “Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset”, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343313484347; UNDP (2024[80]), Gender inequality index (GII), database, https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/composite-indices; UNCTAD (2023[128]), “The state of commodity dependence 2023”, https://unctad.org/publication/state-commodity-dependence-2023; FAO/WFP (2024[129]), “Hunger Hotspots: FAO/WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity, November 2024 to May 2025 outlook, https://www.wfp.org/publications/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-november-2024-may-2025; World Bank Group (2024[130]), Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA), overall debt distress (dataset), https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/debt-toolkit/dsa; Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (2024[131]), “Notre-Dame – Global Adaptation Initiative Country Index”, https://gain.nd.edu/our-work/country-index/; IPC (2024[132]) “Integrated Food Security Phase Classification”, https://www.ipcinfo.org/; Human Development Index (HDI), database, https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI; Coppedge, et al. (2024[21]), “V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v14”, https://doi.org/10.23696/mcwt-fr58.; Lakner and al. (2024[154]), Reproducibility package (partial data and code) for Poverty, Prosperity and Planet Report 2024 (datasets), https://reproducibility.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/189; World Bank (2024[155]) , Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024: Pathways Out of the Polycrisis, https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42211; UN DESA (2024[1]), 2024 Revision of World Population Prospects (database), https://population.un.org/wpp/.
Case study: Managing fragmentation in Central Asia
The breakup of Central Asia as an integrated Soviet region was neither planned nor anticipated and in turn has driven many of the fragilities that continue to manifest today. Yet this fragmentation has also incentivised a drive for greater regional alliances, initiatives and integration that are expressions of a search for resilience (Chapter 1). In a world that is clearly fragmenting, the example of Central Asia’s search for resilience can point to preventative ways of managing fragmentation, focusing on preparedness to prevent and address fragility rather than react to it. And while isolation can be understood as a negative coping mechanism to deal with fragility, the experience of Central Asian contexts also indicates that in the long run a return to connectivity and integration could prevail.
Central Asia as a region is not exposed to high fragility per se. However, the region’s conditions, history and development help explain the fragilities that manifest at different levels in the individual contexts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Each of these displays very different characteristics, exposure to risks and sources of resilience. Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are exposed to high levels of fragility while all other contexts are classified as experiencing medium to low fragility (OECD, 2025[187]).
Each context in the region also experiences specific fragilities at both subnational and transboundary levels that could be missed or misinterpreted through a strictly context-level analysis of fragility. Fragility and conflict also manifest in contested areas of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan where subnational pockets of fragility persist in the shadow of national-level resilience and coping capacities. In these spaces, many of the structural drivers of fragility linked to nation-building across the political, socio-economic and security dimensions after independence have intersected with environmental drivers such as water and land (Chmykh et al., 2021[188]; Kalra and Saxena, 2021[189]).
Many of the fragilities manifesting in Central Asia can be traced to the broken linkages that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union. A region-wide fragility lens helps highlight how the fragmentation and the multiplication of regional alliances can be understood as a search for resilience in the face of increased competition for resources, trade and geopolitical alignment (Chapter 1).
Central Asia is usually understood as the grouping of five post-Soviet states that emerged as independent republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moscow, historically the political, economic and administrative centre, had developed Central Asia as an interconnected entity feeding into Russia, with the Soviet republics, Autonomous Regions and other enclaves effectively sharing access to resources (de Waal, 2024[190]; Chmykh et al., 2021[188]; Kalra and Saxena, 2021[189]). Internal Soviet borders between individual republics only became international frontiers after 1991.
Multidimensional fragility across borders
An example of the regional interlinkages between political, security and societal dimensions of fragility is in the Ferghana Valley, which spans three countries. The internationalisation of borders after independence led to greater militarisation and reduced freedom of movement, acutely affecting the ethnic, cultural and economic enclaves in the Ferghana Valley that had evolved throughout the Soviet period. At the same time, the social distinctions that resulted from the political, economic and social transformation following independence exacerbated growing tensions between communities (Chmykh et al., 2021[188]; Kalra and Saxena, 2021[189]; OSCE Academy Bishek, 2013[191]). Although a number of these issues have been solved through political agreements (e.g. the demarcation of disputed frontiers between Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic), some areas continue to be exposed to tensions and conflict risks that can flare when historical grievances are triggered by other drivers such as access to water or land for pasture.
At the same time, sources of resilience and coping capacities can also be found at the subnational level, for instance through the critical role of community-based dispute resolution mechanisms that have helped manage eruptions of ethnic tensions and through community co-operation to address local issues where the state has limited presence (OSCE Academy Bishek, 2013[191]). Since independence, such cross-border conflicts have consistently been contained despite periodic flare-ups. However, conflict management in future may become more difficult as a result of demographic and climate changes, particularly if the region’s economies fail to achieve sufficient rates of long-term growth in productivity and incomes.
Linking the environmental and economic dimensions, water provides a vivid and often-cited illustration of interconnected fragilities and broken linkages. In Soviet times, the upstream countries that are naturally endowed with rich water resources would feed the downstream agricultural countries in spring and summer in return for energy (gas and coal) in winter. This balance and sharing of resources broke down after the countries gained independence: Upstream contexts now strive to capitalise on their water resources to produce homegrown energy through hydropower, with severe consequences on downstream contexts that are still heavily dependent on irrigation for their growing populations and their agricultural production. In addition, climate change is melting the region’s glaciers and affecting reserves as well as driving sudden extreme weather events that have significant economic consequences, as was shown by the severe flooding that struck Kazakhstan in spring 2024.
The Aral Sea catastrophe and other environmental disasters linked to overexploitation and mining during the Soviet era provide further examples of inherited cross-boundary manifestations of fragility in the region.
Finally, in the economic dimension, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022 was initially expected to have a markedly negative impact on Central Asian economies due to their levels of economic integration and reliance on remittances from Russia. However, the Central Asian economies have displayed a notable level of resilience in withstanding the shock (OECD, 2022[192]). They have managed to use the situation to their geopolitical advantage, attracting further support from the West as alternative trade routes and energy suppliers and, particularly in the case of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as counterweights to Russian influence in the region.
Responding to regional fragility: What policy responses look like
Governments and their international partners need both to know how to mitigate and manage these fragilities and to understand how they are part of a wider system of fragilities that they are able to only partially address. They also need to comprehend their own role in the systems of fragility (OECD, 2018[193]), though this is an area that some analysts see as a weakness in Central Asia (Kalra and Saxena, 2021[189]).
Regionalisation
In response to the broken linkages created by the emergence of independent nation states, Central Asian contexts have sought to build regional initiatives that help “re-integrate” and mitigate some of the risks they experience. Regionalisation efforts have strengthened in reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as countries seek to mitigate the risk of conflict. Likewise, international partners have sought to promote regional approaches in their relations with the Central Asian contexts. Organisations such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Organization of Turkic States,29 and even China’s Belt and Road Initiative, are usually seen through the prism of Russian and Chinese efforts to extend their influence over the region. But they can also be seen as means for the Central Asian contexts themselves to improve their access to the rest of the world and balance their international partnerships through so-called multi-vector foreign policies (Kazantsev, Medvedeva and Safranchuk, 2021[194]). These goals are also reflected in the Central Asian contexts’ membership in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; their partnership and co-operation agreements (PCAs) with the European Union (EU);30 the EU’s long-standing Strategy on Central Asia, adopted in 2007 and updated in 2019; engagement with the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development: participation in the NATO Partnership for Peace initiative; and their respective bilateral security co-operation arrangements.
This “spaghetti bowl” of multi-vector foreign policies (Kazantsev, Medvedeva and Safranchuk, 2021[194]) is a reflection of their efforts to balance relations, mitigate against the domination of any single foreign partner or neighbour, and address some of the structural weaknesses in terms of security and access to international markets inherited from their Soviet past. Several concrete initiatives point to real integration attempts, such as cross-border infrastructure projects and visa policies, yet this marked tendency for regional initiatives falls short of deeper integration, as Central Asia remains a set of five contexts where political and economic elites seek to preserve the independence and stability of their respective systems (de Waal, 2024[190]; Jordanova, 2023[195]).
Connectivity
Central Asia is a natural land bridge for trade and culture and is central to the historic Silk Road. But the emergence of independent states and an infrastructure historically directed towards Moscow created regulatory and physical barriers to both trade and transport. In addition, the region’s geography – it is in the middle of a considerable land mass – makes connections to the rest of the world challenging, especially for Uzbekistan, which is one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world. Improving regional connectivity in Central Asia is a major priority for governments and their international partners. The concept of connectivity is used to refer to a range of issues from multimodal transport and trade to Internet connectivity, digitalisation and private sector development that can help build resilience through integration.
Russia and China have provided the main markets for Central Asian goods (energy, minerals, etc.) since independence, developing their influence alongside each other in soft competition and, to some extent, in complementary security and economic roles (de Waal, 2024[190]; Kazantsev, Medvedeva and Safranchuk, 2021[194]). Türkiye has played an important regional role both as a conduit for access to Europe through the Caucasus and as a cultural counterweight to the larger neighbours. Western partners encourage regional co-operation in Central Asia. The EU Strategy for Central Asia highlights regional co-operation and connectivity within the region as a cross-cutting priority for energy, the environment, climate, water, security and socio-economic development (European Commission, 2019[196]), with a political focus through the EU-Central Asia International Conference on Connectivity (Global Gateway) that took place in November 2022 in Uzbekistan and through EU-Central Asia ministerial meetings. Likewise, the United States government’s Central Asia Strategy focuses on encouraging regional connectivity between Central Asian countries (US Department of State, 2019[197]).
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has provided renewed impetus for improved connectivity in Central Asia. The so-called Middle Corridor provides a valuable – and now invaluable – alternative to the northern route through Russia (OECD, 2023[198]). International partners are working with the region’s governments to address the structural disadvantages of geography, borders and diverging regulatory regimes to improve integration into global transport, trade and supply chains (OECD, 2023[199]). For Russia, the region offers access to alternative markets in the south and east, given the closure of Western markets since 2022.
Isolation
Turkmenistan’s long-standing policy of isolation and neutrality, made possible by its natural endowment in hydrocarbons, can be seen as a contrasting response to existing fragilities. By maintaining a closed autocratic system where the state controls all the country’s assets and external relations, Turkmenistan has managed to remain stable, though reliable data remain scarce and an accurate understanding of the context is therefore challenging. Recently, however, the country has begun to open up somewhat, seeking World Trade Organization accession, engaging more with international organisations, and working to establish itself as a transport and energy hub in the region. These initiatives are still in their infancy but mark an important shift in policy. Uzbekistan had also tended towards isolation, with the exception of military co-operation through bases that provided access to Afghanistan, and fragility has noticeably decreased since the gradual opening up and economic reform programme since 2018.
Case study: How rising insecurity feeds regional fragilities in coastal West Africa
The coastal West African contexts of Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Togo are experiencing a spike in security-related incidents linked to violent extremist groups operating since 2022, particularly in the northern regions of Benin and Togo (Eizenga and Gnauguenon, 2024[200]). This has been accompanied by a small but growing flow of refugees (more than 110 000) from conflict-affected contexts in the Sahel who have settled in coastal West Africa (UN Refugee Agency, 2024[201]). These developments have prompted fears of a risk of contagion that could manifest in spillovers of economic, political and security fragility from the Sahel to coastal West African contexts. This case study explores the diverse fragility profiles of these contexts and the evolution of regional and context-level fragility and reviews the policy responses of international donors and national authorities.
Increased security fragility, localised grievances and geopolitical change
Increases in security incidents have the potential to connect with other prevalent fragilities in the often less-developed northern areas of coastal West Africa (Silla, 2022[202]) and feed into existing grievances around limited government service delivery and intercommunal tensions (Eizenga and Gnauguenon, 2024[200]). Violent extremist groups active in the region have been adept at exploiting these localised grievances and public resentment over heavy-handed state responses (Eizenga and Gnauguenon, 2024[200]).
Policy responses from international donors, including the United States’ ten-year plan for coastal West Africa, have focused on preventing the spread of violent extremism in alignment with national development plans and in co-ordination with coastal West African governments (USAID, 2024[203]). This strategy, based on the vision set forth in the 2019 United States Global Fragility Act, focuses on strengthening social cohesion as well as enhancing the responsiveness of the governments and security forces. However, apart from an increase to Côte d'Ivoire starting in 2020, peace ODA towards other contexts in the region has generally been decreasing or, in the case of Togo, has stagnated. Some nationally led plans have aimed to address deteriorating security, such as the Côte d'Ivoire’s Programme Spécial du Nord, which combined an increased security presence with investment in infrastructure and social programmes in the northern border regions (Eizenga and Gnauguenon, 2024[200]). There are also regional responses such as the Accra Initiative established by Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Togo to combat violent extremism, prevent terrorist attacks and fight transnational organised crime (Eizenga and Gnauguenon, 2024[200]).
The move in early 2024 by the military-ruled Sahel states (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) to leave the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and form their own breakaway organisation, the Alliance of Sahel States, marked a geopolitical rupture that may also worsen the economic situation in the Sahel and the security situation in coastal West African contexts (Edds-Reitman and Boakye, 2024[204]). Landlocked Sahel contexts are likely to see increased economic fragility due to higher import costs and higher labour costs resulting from restrictions on free movement, as they will be cut off from their main trade routes that connect to seaports. This fragility could in turn affect coastal West African contexts, disrupting their economies (e.g. trade and investment) via spillovers of insecurity and worsening international co-operation with neighbours. For instance, economic disruptions through export and FDI channels due to the Sahel conflicts may lead to losses amounting to 1.3% of GDP in Ghana (Raga, Lemma and Keane, 2023[205]).
Rapid social change and urbanisation
Presently, coastal West African States are spending increasing amounts on humanitarian and security operations to the detriment of development budgets (Edds-Reitman and Boakye, 2024[204]). This may create additional challenges, since all these contexts, apart from Ghana, face severe levels of human fragility; past increases in military expenditure were correlated with lower spending on health and education (in Ghana and Togo specifically) (Raga, Lemma and Keane, 2023[205]). In parallel, these contexts are also undergoing processes of rapid demographic growth, inward migration towards coastal areas and urbanisation, with most of the population and infrastructures concentrated in coastal zones (Dada, Almar and Morand, 2024[206]). This has implications for social investments in terms of ensuring that infrastructure, human capital and the provision of housing can keep pace with the rates of population and urban growth. In particular, economic activity is concentrated around the Abidjan-Lagos corridor, which could be connected by a highway in the future; the corridor is home to 75% of commercial activities in West Africa (Africa Investment Forum, 2024[207]) and will likely become one of the largest urban areas (megalopolis) by 2100 (French, 2022[208]).
Intertwined economic and environmental fragility as commodity exporters
At the same time, most contexts in coastal West Africa have relatively fragile economies that are heavily dependent on specific commodities that included, in 2022, aluminium ore for Guinea (48% of its exports), cocoa beans, paste and butter for Côte d'Ivoire (24% of its exports) and gold for Ghana (20% of its exports) (Growth Lab, 2023[209]). Several of these contexts, among them Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Togo, also have lower levels of economic complexity than they did a decade ago while this has improved for Benin and Ghana in terms of the complexity and diversification of their export baskets (Growth Lab, 2023[209]). Their economic structure, oriented towards commodity exports, may exacerbate their overall fragility as commodity markets are often volatile in terms of their price structure. Some of these products are also associated with increased environmental fragility and large-scale informal employment. For instance, the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector in Ghana accounts for 35% of its gold production and is associated with environmental fragility (land degradation, river pollution and mercury exposure) as well as economic fragility (informality and illicit financial flows) (Adranyi, Stringer and Altink, 2024[210]). Similarly, in Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa accounts for 45% of world production but has many negative economic and environmental externalities (Le Monde, 2024[211]). Specifically, cocoa production has led to the destruction of most of the country’s forests and to widespread pollution (environmental fragility) and also employs an increasing number of children, with many producers living under the extreme poverty line due to low wages (societal and economic fragility) (True Price; Sustainable Trade Initiative, 2022[212]). At the same time, Côte d’Ivoire captures the lower end of the cocoa value chain. On the macroeconomic side, Togo is at high risk of debt distress while Ghana is facing important economic challenges that have become salient in the aftermath of the austerity measures that were implemented to solve its external debt crisis and obtain emergency IMF funding (Simons, 2023[213]).
Differing historical trajectories and political systems
The contexts in the region vary widely in terms of their histories and trajectories of institutional development, reinforcing the need for tailored policy approaches. Ghana stands out as regards its lower levels of political fragility but also is often lauded as one of the few stable democracies in sub-Saharan Africa, characterised by competitive elections and peaceful transitions of power since it became a democracy in 1992. However, there have been some signs of strain in terms of satisfaction with democracy since 2017 (Afrobarometer, 2024[214]), with dissatisfaction linked to Ghana’s current economic situation and debt distress. Benin is a typical case of gradual democratic backsliding through the introduction of electoral reforms that imposed stringent new procedural requirements and through attacks on the independence of the media and the judiciary (International IDEA, 2023[215]). Togo has remained a stable autocracy since 1967 under the Gnassingbé family; elections have been held but are neither free nor transparent. Guinea experienced a stark decline in democracy due to the 2021 military coup that overthrew President Conde, who was running for a third term amid widespread popular support for a two-term limit, leading to the militarisation of society, violent crackdowns against opposition parties and shrinking media space (Siegle and Wahila, 2025[216]). Côte d’Ivoire has been characterised by divides around ethnicity and two civil wars (in 2002-07 and 2010-11) and is now ruled by President Ouattara, who most recently won an election in 2020 that was boycotted by the opposition and marked by post-electoral violence.
Many of these contexts, including Guinea and Togo, have high degrees of ethnic polarisation, discrimination and instrumentalisation for political gains. In Guinea, each of its three autocratic leaders historically provided patronage (jobs and contracts) and investments primarily to his home region with fault lines running between the Fulani and Malinke ethnic groups (Gerber, 2013[217]). Similarly, in Togo, the civil service and military are dominated by northern ethnic groups, especially groups associated with the president, while the largest of the ethnic groups in demographic terms is underrepresented in these institutions (International IDEA, 2023[215]). Another source of insecurity and tension has been farmer-herder conflicts in the northern areas of these contexts.
Case study: Pockets of reduced fragility amid regional risks in Central America
The massive migrant outflows from Central America31 in recent years can be traced back to several intertwined historical and current drivers of fragility. People are leaving Central America to search for better economic opportunities but also to escape mismanaged economic policies; malign foreign investment strategies, especially in extractive sectors; and state violence, environmental degradation and land dispossession (Carare, 2023[218]). The fragility profiles of four contexts – El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua – demonstrate clearly how drivers of risk and resilience combine to present distinct challenges within and across national borders.
Nicaragua and Guatemala both experience high fragility. Since 2015, Nicaragua has become increasingly vulnerable due to its political crisis and authoritarian governance, which is reflected in the deterioration of most of the indicators for the political and societal dimensions. Guatemala presents a different pattern: notably high fragility in the human dimension and a growing trend towards poverty, particularly noticeable in rural areas and among vulnerable groups such as the Indigenous population and Afro descendent populations, which accounts for 43.8% of Guatemala’s total population (Mamo, 2024[219]). Honduras has moved from high to medium to low fragility thanks to slight improvements in all dimensions except security. While it shows resilience in the political and economic dimensions, Honduras still experiences fragility in the environmental and security dimensions that may undermine gains in other areas. El Salvador experiences medium to low fragility, showing resilience in the economic and human dimensions, yet has high levels of societal fragility.
The fragility intersections that matter for Central America
Central America is particularly prone to disaster risks. The region has the second-highest incidence of disaster occurrence (UN, 2023[220]), with events ranging from seasonal cyclonic activity, hurricanes, earthquakes and droughts to floods, volcanic activity, fires and extreme temperatures. The Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) alone recorded 359 disasters between 1900 and 2022, with meteorological events being the most frequent and severe, causing 62% of the total deaths and 86% of financial costs (OECD, 2024[82]). Given these risks and their potential impact on fragilities, the region needs to emphasise disaster preparedness and mitigation strategies that link national, regional and global dependencies.
Latin America and the Caribbean32 more broadly are also a key source of global resilience, hosting almost 60% of terrestrial life on the planet and diverse marine and freshwater ecosystems (UNEP, 2016[221]) as well as almost 20% of the world’s oil reserves and 25% of its strategic metals (ECLAC, 2023[222]). The Central America region is also rich in biodiversity, containing 5-12% of the world’s flora and fauna (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 2024[223]). However, much of the extraction of biological wealth and mineral resources from this environment has been mismanaged, leading to significant fragility across economic, societal and human dimensions. Even policies that aimed to stimulate economic growth through privatisation, deregulation and trade liberalisation, particularly in extractive industries such as mining, logging and agribusiness, often hurt vulnerable populations, with negative outcomes compromising or outweighing gains. For instance, 28% of Nicaragua’s territory was allocated for mining concessions (Asociación Centroamericana Centro Humboldt, 2023[224]). The expansion of mining has led to land dispossession and environmental degradation, sparking protests that are sometimes followed by violent repression.
How environmental and economic intersections shape societal and political fragility
The political economy of Central America has been profoundly shaped by collective action groups that viewed democracy not as an avenue for equitable governance but as a tool to extend their extractive dominance (Hernández, 2020[225]). Instead of fostering inclusive and participatory governance, these groups have used their influence to shape policies and institutions in ways that protect their interests. This has led to a situation where democratic institutions exist in name but function in a manner that perpetuates inequality and social exclusion, leaving marginalised communities struggling to achieve representation or justice within the existing democratic framework (Rozbicka et al., 2020, pp. 1-23[226]).
In Guatemala, mining projects have become flashpoints of contestation around social and environmental injustice. For instance, the Escobal mine has been the centre of intense conflict as Indigenous Xinka communities have repeatedly voiced their opposition to mine operations on the grounds that it produces environmental pollution and violates their territorial rights. Despite widespread community protests and a court-ordered suspension, the mine has continued operations due to pressure from influential economic interests and state authorities (Aguilar, 2021[227]; Washington Office on Latin America, 2022[228]). This example is replicated across the region, where isolated, underrepresented and disempowered Indigenous communities often suffer from higher rates of poverty, lower levels of educational attainment and limited access to healthcare linked strongly to the contexts’ governance of natural resources. The political economy associated with international business interests and national elite governance of resources is not limited to mining but extends, with similar effects, to large-scale agricultural projects and energy megaprojects. The distorting impact on democracy should not be underestimated, as flawed and corrupted democracies with high social and environmental costs can drive negative, and often violent, coping capacities among populations cut off from a political settlement (Fajardo, 2021[229]). According to Global Witness, Guatemala recorded dozens of murders of environmental and land rights activists, often in connection with extractive industries.
Violence as a symptom and cause of multidimensional fragility in Central America
Despite efforts towards democratisation and economic growth in Central America, the region continues to struggle with pervasive violence, high homicide rates and widespread insecurity (Domínguez, 2019[230]) . In the Northern Triangle countries, democratisation has not translated into improved public services or safety. These countries remain among the most violent in the world, with homicide rates often exceeding 30 per 100 000 inhabitants – far above the global average. In recent years, El Salvador has reversed the trend with a dramatic decline in violent deaths that were largely due to gang violence. In 2022, the homicide rate dropped to below 8 per 100 000 inhabitants, compared to a staggering 50 per 100 000 in 2018. The homicide rate in 2023 was the lowest in the country's history, according to government records. The hardline tactics behind the lower numbers have garnered widespread domestic approval. Many Salvadorans, especially those living in gang-controlled areas, have expressed relief at the decline in violence and extortion, which has allowed greater freedom of movement and economic activity. President Nayib Bukele’s approval ratings have climbed to above 80% (Sheridan and Escobar, 2024[231]). While the current strategy has shown short-term success in curbing violence, questions remain as to whether its gains can be consolidated through measures to address the underlying drivers of fragility that can incentivise gang membership such as structural factors, lack of educational opportunities and unemployment. Limitations on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly raise other concerns regarding the resilience of democratic structures in El Salvador.
Meanwhile, transitions to democratic governance in the region have often been superficial, with weak institutions and corruption hindering the development of effective law enforcement and judicial systems and narrowing economic gains to a small elite while leaving large segments of the population living with poverty and inequality. Organised crime, drug trafficking and gang violence have flourished, as criminal groups exploit institutional weaknesses and corruption in order to control territories and engage in illicit activities; the persistent violence and intimidation from these groups are frequently cited as a driver of forced migration.
The human capital outflow associated with migration from the Northern Triangle countries further compounds economic fragility. Between 2018 and 2021, 407 000 people on average left the region each year (Congressional Research Service, 2024[232]). The region also has some of the highest remittance dependency levels in the world: Nicaragua and El Salvador, for instance, rely on these inflows for 27% and 24% of their respective GDP. Households often depend on these remittances to cover basic needs such as food, housing and education. Remittances are also a more stable source of foreign income than either FDI or ODA in many Central American contexts. Yet, the cost of remittances is higher in Central America than globally, a barrier to maximising their potential.
Note: Biodiversity figures refer to the following contexts in Central America: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama). Global Forest Watch defines primary forests as "mature natural humid tropical forest cover that has not been completely cleared and regrown in recent history". The mining conflicts relate to metal ores, industrial minerals and construction materials after 2000. Homicide data for Nicaragua is not available after 2022. Internal displacement figures refer to cumulative figures from 2021 (16 810), 2022 (140 600) and 2023 (59 760) (new displacements as well as movements from people already living in displacement are counted). Sub-national poverty data availability: Guatemala and Nicaragua (2014), Honduras (2019) and El Salvador (2022).
Source: A. Morales-Marroquín et al. (2022[233]), Biodiversity Research in Central America: A Regional Comparison in Scientific Production Using Bibliometrics and Democracy Indicators, https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2022.898818; Global Forest Watch (2025[234]), Global Forest Watch: Dashboard, https://www.globalforestwatch.org/; Asociación Centroamericana Centro Humboldt, (2023[224]), Capítulo 5: Actividades Extractivas en Centroamérica, https://acch-ca.org/2023/11/capitulo-5-actividades-extractivas-en-centroamerica/; Leah Temper, Daniela del Bene and Joan Martinez-Alier (2015[235]), Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas, http://jpe.library.arizona.edu/volume_22/Temper.pdf; EJAtlas (2025[236]), “EJ Atlas - Global Atlas of Environmental Justice”, https://ejatlas.org/ ; UN ECLAC (2025[237]), CEPALSTAT: Geoportal, https://statistics.cepal.org/geo/geo-cepalstat/; Global Data Lab (2025[238]), Subnational Human Development (version 8.1), https://globaldatalab.org/shdi/; World Bank (2024[153]), Migration and Development Brief 40 – June 2024, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099714008132436612/pdf/IDU1a9cf73b51fcad1425a1a0dd1cc8f2f3331ce.pdf; Igarapé Institute (2024[115]), Homicide Monitor, dataset, https://homicide.igarape.org.br/; International Displacement Monitoring Centre (2024[135]), Global Internal Displacement Database, https://www.internal-displacement.org/database/displacement-data/; IPC (2024[132]) “Integrated Food Security Phase Classification”, https://www.ipcinfo.org/.
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← 1. The findings from the analysis undertaken for this report are based on data available up to mid-October 2024.
← 2. There are 61 high and extreme fragility contexts on the OECD fragility framework but 63 regimes. This discrepancy is due to Varieties of Democracy’s classification of Somaliland as a separate entity and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as separate entities. All contexts with changes between -0005 and/or 0.005 change on the liberal democracy index from 2019 to 2023 were classified as having stayed the same (neither autocratised or democratised).
← 3. This index measures the quality of democratic institutions – most notably those related to the rule of law, checks and balances, and civil liberties.
← 4. Several V-Dem mid-level indices were considered to provide a better understanding of which aspects of democracy have deteriorated the most in the past five years.
← 5. These conclusions and calculations are the authors’ own calculations based on the classification of closed autocracies used in a 2019 V-Dem working paper available at https://v-dem.net/media/publications/users_working_paper_22.pdf.
← 6. This refers to the concept of political marketplace.
← 7. Internet usage figures are based on World Bank World Development Indicators with minor processing by Our World in Data.
← 8. This finding draws on data from the UN Children’s Fund on the percentage of girls who have undergone female genital mutilation as reported by place of residence and household wealth quintile.
← 9. This indicator measures the percentage of women who consider a husband/partner to be justified in hitting or beating his wife/partner.
← 10. Conflict-affected contexts are those that experienced 25 or more battle-related deaths in 2021. Contexts in a state of war are those that experienced 1 000 or more battle-related deaths in 2021.
← 11. These are the authors’ calculations based on data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. A conflict is classified as occurring in a high or extreme fragility context if one of the parties to the conflict originates from a context experiencing fragility.
← 12. An internationalised intrastate conflict is one with the involvement of foreign governments with troops.
← 13. This is based on the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project definition of organised violence as including battles, explosions and/or remote violence, and violence against civilians.
← 14. Events were filtered by organised violence and data was available for 54 out of 61 contexts exposed to high and extreme fragility.
← 15. Data on incidents, hostages and injuries from terrorism are reliant on figures published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, which uses a proprietary tool, the Dragonfly TerrorismTracker database.
← 16. This figure is based on the authors’ own calculation using weighted average population means.
← 17. This was calculated using a population weighted average based on data availability for 172 contexts out of 177 on the OECD multidimensional framework.
← 18. These percentage calculations only consider contexts on the OECD multidimensional fragility framework.
← 19. Globally, current account imbalances were receding in 2023 as large current account imbalances in commodity-exporting countries were declining in the wake of falling commodity prices. For further information see https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/ESR/Issues/2024/07/12/external-sector-report-2024.
← 20. Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than USD 2.15 per day.
← 21. Author’s calculations based on the reproducibility package for the World Bank’s Poverty, Prosperity and Planet Report 2024, referenced in the infographic.
← 22. The primary balance is the difference between a government’s revenue and its non-interest expenditure (i.e. what it is spending not including debt payments). A primary surplus is when revenues exceed non-interest government expenditures.
← 23. Special Drawing Rights is a reserve asset made up of a basket of hard currencies, designed to supplement IMF members’ own foreign currency reserves. The USD 650 Billion SDR allocation during the pandemic was designed to shore up global liquidity, with SDR credited to IMF members’ accounts in proportion to their membership quota.
← 24. The Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) was set up by the G20 to suspend debt service payments by participating countries from May 2020 to December 2021, in order that financial resources could be concentrated on fighting the pandemic and responding to its impacts.
← 25. The sustainability of debt reflects a technical assessment and judgement of the likelihood a country will be able to meet its current and future financial obligations. In practice this means that to be sustainable, the primary balance needed to stabilise a country’s debt under both the baseline and realistic shock scenarios is assessed as being politically and socially acceptable, and consistent with preserving a satisfactory level of growth while making progress towards the authorities’ development goals. For further information, see https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/Issues/2018/02/14/pp122617guidance-note-on-lic-dsf
← 26. Note that this analysis includes debt taken on by private companies, if it is publicly guaranteed.
← 27. The principle initiative was the Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, set up by the Group of Twenty and endorsed by the Paris Club. It is an attempt to structure and speed up debt restructuring processes by bringing together a broader set of official creditors. Private creditors are not automatically covered, but borrowers are required to seek at least as favourable terms from their other official bilateral and private creditors. Recent debt restructurings under the framework for Chad, Ghana and Zambia have taken less and less time to complete as stakeholders have become more familiar with the recently introduced Common Framework process and built trust.
← 28. The global climate tipping points identified were Arctic winter ice (collapse); boreal forest (northern expansion); boreal permafrost (abrupt thaw); Amazon rainforest (dieback); mountain glaciers (loss); West Antarctic ice sheet (collapse); Greenland ice sheet (collapse); Labrador Sea and subpolar gyre (collapse); Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (collapse); Barents Sea ice (abrupt loss); Sahel East African monsoon (greening); East Antarctic ice sheet (collapse); boreal permafrost (collapse); boreal forest (southern dieback); low-latitude coral reefs (die-off); and East Antarctic subglacial basin (collapse). The list is based on tipping points identified in 2019 research by Lenton et al., available at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0.
← 29. The Collective Security Treaty Organization includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation includes Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Eurasian Economic Union members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The Organization of Turkic States includes Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan.
← 30. Among these are the EU’s enhanced PCAs with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; its enhanced PCA under negotiation with Uzbekistan; and PCAs with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
← 31. The Central America region is considered here as comprising Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama
← 32. Central America and its hinterland are the set of countries in the Latin America region.