David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy have penned a major report that assesses stability in fragile states. The report was commissioned by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as part of Carleton’s Country Indicators for Foreign Policy project.
As a country that has been without a central government for more than two decades, Somalia is currently ranked the least stable. The top 10 are rounded out by Afghanistan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Central African Republic, the Sudan, Eritrea, Pakistan and Côte d’Ivoire.
The report provides some disturbing evidence of ineffectual impacts from much of the world’s aid spending. As one of CIDA’s countries of focus, Afghanistan has received billions of dollars since 2002. But the social situation in the country has actually deteriorated over the past decade. According to Carment and Samy, these findings draw Canada’s aid contributions into question.
“The current policy approach is simply unworkable,” said the authors. “In particular, there is an absence of effective linkages between analysis, monitoring and warning on the one hand, and support to donor decision-making on the other.”
“Key is the identification of where the investment will yield the biggest bang for the buck. This means focusing on our strengths and being humble enough to say no in certain cases. It implies scaling back aid if necessary in particular cases, such as Afghanistan, where out-of-control corruption requires even more careful monitoring of every dollar of aid spent.”
The full report is available here. Click here to see a video comparing CIFP worldwide data between 1980 and 2010.
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For more information:
Christopher Cline
Media Relations Co-ordinator
Carleton University
613-520-2600, ext. 1391
christopher_cline@carleton.ca