This publication provides the evidence to help donors understand how to balance risks and opportunities in order to protect the integrity of their institutions while delivering better results to those who need it most.

From the anarchy of Somalia to the relative stability of Nepal, fragile and transitional situations represent a broad spectrum of contexts. However, they share some common features: these are risky environments - for the people who live there, for their governments, for neighbouring countries, and for those who seek to provide assistance. Positive outcomes are hard to achieve and the risk of regression in countries emerging from armed conflict is high. International engagement in these situations presents significant risks for donors and implementing partners, but also holds the potential for.

The 2011 WDR on Conflict, Security and Development underlines the devastating impact of persistent conflict on a country or region's development prospects - noting that the 1.5 billion people living in conflict-affected areas are twice as likely to be in poverty. Its goal is to contribute concrete, practical suggestions on conflict and fragility.

This volume presents clear policy recommendations for better practice in order to improve the speed, flexibility, predictability and risk management of international support during post-conflict transition.

This book is based on experience and reflections related to international support provided to parliaments and legislative bodies both in selected countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, Serbia, and Kyrgyzstan) and globally. The author intends to provide a critique of parliamentary support, as part of development assistance or foreign aid, for having been conceived in narrow terms of technical assistance and for failing to appreciate that aid effectiveness calls for a sound understanding of a country’s politics, culture, and history. The monograph examines the effectiveness of aid in both stable democracies, and fragile and transition countries. The project is ideal for audiences interested in regional politics, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Central Asia, and development/democracy studies.

This book addresses a conundrum for the international development community: The law of development cooperation poses major constraints on delivering aid where it is needed most. The existence of a state with an effective government is a basic condition for the transfer of aid, making development cooperation with ‘fragile’ nations particularly challenging. The author explores how international organizations like the World Bank have responded by adopting formal and informal rules to engage specifically with countries with weak or no governments. Von Engelhardt provides a critical analysis of the discourse on fragile states and how it has shaped the policy decision-making of international organizations. By demonstrating how perceptions of fragility can have significant consequences both in practice and in law, the work challenges conventional research that dismisses state fragility as a phenomenon beyond law. It also argues that the legal parameters for effective global policy play a crucial role, and offers a fresh approach to a topic that is central to international security and development.

This book makes seven recommendations to improve the quality of support that states and international organizations provide to peace processes.