The end of the ten-year-long armed conflict between the Maoists and the government and the peace agreements of late 2006 brought widespread hope for a more inclusive and well-governed Nepal. However, six years later in early 2013, the failure to produce the promised new constitution and an...

The existence of under-aided countries, sectors, and sub-national regions – also known as “aid orphans” – implies inefficiencies in the current overall allocation of aid resources. This is of particular concern because aid effectiveness depends not only on how well resources are...

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, empirically, state fragility – con­ceptualised as a multi-dimensional phenomenon along the categories of authority, capacity and legitimacy – comes in several distinct configurations, yet that the number of such configurations is rather...

Over the past decade, the interest in aid effectiveness has grown exponentially, with a proliferation of both praxis-oriented evaluations and academic studies. At the same time, the rising interest in “fragile states” has prompted the aid-effectiveness literature to focus its attention on...

This paper provides an overview of current research and practice of governance evaluation covering three topics: electoral accountability, corruption, and multidimensional peacekeeping. It illustrates how previous evaluation challenges have been tackled using state-of-the-art methodologies, and...

Most actors in the field of foreign aid agree with the call for coordinated engagement in fragile states in order to more effectively counter the consequences and origins of state failure. However, despite such demands, governments from OECD countries as well as multilateral agencies that are...

How can countries emerging from a conflict be supported on their path towards peace and democracy? Although this question has been the focus of recent attention, it remains unclear exactly what factors are critical to the success of external engagement in fragile states. To this end, this study...

This article examines the role of the democratic emerging powers - India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and Turkey - in promoting democracy beyond their own borders. It argues that while these countries have potential advantages compared to western democracy promoters, namely, their own...

The European Union is one of the world’s most important actors in assisting fragile and conflict-affected countries, and has made engagement with ‘fragile states’ a top priority for its development policy. At the policy level, the EU’s approach is in line with international best...

One of the problems in post-war societies is finding ways of convincing former combatants to hand in their weapons and reintegrate into civil society. In an attempt to facilitate the transition from war to peace, DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) programmes have become key...