Assessing Long-Term State Fragility in Africa: Prospects for 26 'More Fragile' Countries

Cilliers, Jakkie; Sisk, Timothy D.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2690234

Cited by 21 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Guided by the literature review and stylised facts, we study the factors associated with building resilience in fragile sub‐Saharan African countries, paying particular attention to the relationship between fiscal institutions and policies and resilience. Our working definition of resilience is the inverse of that of fragility, and can be understood as the ability to provide basic human security and/or create the public goods and conditions needed for human development (Cilliers and Sisk, ). This is closely related to Besley and Persson's concept of state capacity described earlier.…”

Section: Empirical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…estimates that moving from the level of institutional capacity of a country like Haiti to that of Ghana could take between 15 and 30 years. Cilliers and Sisk () estimate that of 26 sub‐Saharan African countries identified as fragile, 12 could be expected to be on a path to greater resilience by 2039, 4 more by or before 2050, leaving 10 still in a fragile situation by 2050…”

Section: Lessons From Resilient Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… Cilliers and Sisk () present in more detail the World Bank and African Development Bank's approaches to state fragility, and present alternative sub‐Saharan African country rankings based on a range of indices.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Exiting from Fragility in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Role of Fiscal Policies and Fiscal Institutions

Deléchat¹,

Fuli

Mulaj

et al. 2018

South African J Economics

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This paper studies the role of fiscal policies and institutions in building resilience in sub‐Saharan African countries, focussing on 26 countries that were deemed fragile in the 1990s. We use a probabilistic framework together with GMM estimation to address endogeneity and reverse causality. We find that fiscal institutions and fiscal space, namely the capacity to raise tax revenue and contain current spending, as well as the quality of public expenditure, are significantly and robustly associated with building resilience. Similar conclusions arise from a qualitative study of 7 sub‐Saharan African countries in the sample that built resilience since the 1990s.

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Section: Empirical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lessons From Resilient Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exiting from Fragility in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Role of Fiscal Policies and Fiscal Institutions

Deléchat¹,

Fuli

Mulaj

et al. 2018

South African J Economics

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“…Afghanistan) that have shown little improvement in their conditions. The 2009 European Report on Development concludes that from 1979 to 2009 fragility levels of the bottom 35 countries had not improved despite generous aid programmes (EDR 2009, see also Cilliers and Sisk 2013). According to data from our Country Indicators for Foreign Policy (CIFP) project, more than half of the forty fragile states in 1980 are still classified as fragile in 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exiting the fragility trap: Rethinking our approach to the world's most fragile states

Carment¹,

Samy²

2017

WIDER Working Paper

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.Abstract: Those fragile states whose stagnation is so tenacious despite generous aid programs, and substantial and costly interventions, are stuck in a 'fragility trap.' Caught in a low-level equilibrium, trapped states appear to be in a perpetual political and economic limbo that can last for years and in several cases, decades. Our goal is to determine those features that trapped states have in common, and compare changes in those features over time with states that have successfully exited. The paper unfolds in four parts. In the first part we examine key concepts underpinning fragility traps in addition to conducting a review of current theorizing. In the second part we present the results of our large sample analysis. In the third part we compare the results of our comparative case studies with findings from the large sample analysis. In the fourth and final section we conclude with a discussion on how our findings inform policy. 1 Our prior research on traps focused on examples of specific state transitions but did not explore the question of causes (Carment et al 2015).2 With a focus on Africa, Andrimihaja et al. (2011) found that not only do the continent's fragile states grow more slowly than non-fragile states, the probability that a fragile state in 2001 was still fragile in 2009 was 0.95. According to the authors, corruption, political instability and violence, insecure property rights, and unenforceable contracts conspire to create a 'slow-growth-poor-governance equilibrium trap' into which these most fragile states fall and which they denote as a fragility trap. They suggest growth focused aid will not work in such cases. 3 In our previous research we found that fragility correlated strongly with economic growth, aid to fragile states tended to be more volatile and many states tended to be over aided beyond their absorptive capacity (Carment, Samy and Prest 2008). We also found that aid focusing on state society relations tends to be neglected relative to building strong state capacity and authority. A key factor in determining long-term stability, namely legitimacy, is generally ignored in the policy process (Carment, Prest and Samy 2008).

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“…This view is reinforced by Faust et al (2013) who argue that many of the findings developed by Collier et al (2003) and others using World Bank rankings are indefensible upon closer scrutiny. In response to these criticisms, calls for a more nuanced contextdriven approach to address these ranking deficiencies have been made by Carment et al (2009), Gravingholt et al (2012), and de Cilliers and Sisk (2013 But it is the FFP-FSI that has been the focus of the most pointed and detailed criticism. For example, Gutiérrez-Sanín (2009) and Gutiérrez-Sanín et al (2011) demonstrate that the lack of formal definitions and operational variance of the FSI generate significant gaps between it and other indices.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Categorization of States Beyond Strong and Weak

Tikuisis¹,

Carment

2017

Stability: International Journal of Security and Development

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Assessing Long-Term State Fragility in Africa: Prospects for 26 'More Fragile' Countries

Cited by 21 publications

References 36 publications

Exiting from Fragility in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Role of Fiscal Policies and Fiscal Institutions

Exiting from Fragility in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Role of Fiscal Policies and Fiscal Institutions

Exiting the fragility trap: Rethinking our approach to the world's most fragile states

Categorization of States Beyond Strong and Weak

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