Fragility and MDG Progress: How useful is the fragility concept?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usefulness of the fragile state concept in tracking the levels and progress of the MDGs. In doing so, this paper applies several definitions of fragility in order to study the MDG progress between 1990 and 2006. It compares aver-age performance in levels and trends of MDG progress between fragile and non-fragile countries and also compares within-group heterogeneity.

The paper shows that fragile countries are, indeed, performing worse in terms of MDG levels. MDG progress is not necessarily slower in fragile states. Only a rather small number of countries suffering from compound disadvantages are doing significantly worse in terms of MDG progress. Lastly, the heterogeneity of MDG performance among fragile states is so large that it is not very useful to treat them as a group; the problems they face, as well as the solutions required, differ greatly and have to be developed and treated sui generis.

Paper prepared for the Conference on "The challenges of fragility to development policy", organised by the European Report on Development In Barcelona, Spain, 7-8 May, 2009.

European Report on Development 2009

Supported by the European Commission and seven Member States (Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom), the European Report on Development (ERD) is the main output of the "Mobilising European Research for Development Policies" initiative. This flagship report is published since 2009, with the aim of stimulating debate and research on topics of major relevance for development, as well as to enhance the European perspective in the international development arena.