Crises and Fragility Newsletter

January 2019

Read the January edition of the Newsletter here

December 2018

Released this month, a Working Paper on Financing refugee-hosting contexts, an analysis of the DAC’s contribution to burden- and responsiblity-sharing in supporting refugees and their host communities.

November 2018

The 11th annual INCAF Director Level Meeting (DLM) took place on 20 November in Paris. The Network issued a communiqué which can be found here.

July 2018

Read the January edition of the Newsletter here.

January 2018

Read the January edition of the Newsletter here.

November 2017

The 10th annual INCAF Director Level Meeting (DLM) took place on 7 November in Paris. The Network issued a communiqué with the major outputs of the event which can be found here.

September 2017

Read the September edition of the Newsletter here.

July 2017

Read the July edition of the Newsletter here.

Commitments into action & Financing for Stability in Sudan

OECD/DAC members provide the majority of global humanitarian funding – in 2016 humanitarian ODA rose by 8% in real terms, to USD 14.4 billion. That money needs to be delivered effectively, providing maximum impact for people in crises: those left furthest behind.

In May 2016, the World Humanitarian Summit reflected on the shifting nature of crises and the need for new ways of funding and delivering humanitarian assistance. Crises are more complex, and require donors to answer new questions on what to fund, how to choose the most relevant partners, and, overall, how to better finance humanitarian operations. Under the OECD’s mandate to monitor the effectiveness of aid and to promote peer learning, we support our members to deliver on the commitments made at the Summit, especially the commitments around better humanitarian financing. As part of this work, the OECD has created the “Commitments into Action” series to provide practical guidance for OECD Development Assistance Committee members and other humanitarian donors, helping them translate their humanitarian policy commitments into quality results in the field. Those guidelines address – in very practical terms – how to better deliver better quality humanitarian ODA, covering a range of topics including financing cash-based responses, multi-annual financing, financing the localisation of humanitarian aid, financing preparedness, humanitarian-development coherence, and financing urban responses. All the guidelines will be progressively available online on a dedicated humanitarian donor website: www.oecd.org/development/humanitarian-donors/ . This site also helps donors share good practices and discusses their challenges, creating an informal community of practice for humanitarian donors. Finally, the OECD is partnering with Ground Truth Solutions to interview thousands of people affected by crises, and field based humanitarians, to track the way people in crises and field staff experience the World Humanitarian Summit reforms. The objective is to inform implementation of the policy changes, and ultimately to improve the overall effectiveness of humanitarian aid. The results of the surveys will also be available on the website.

Financing for Stability: Sudan

Ensuring the right amount of finance, using the right tools, at the right time, with the right incentives, to deliver peace and stability in fragile contexts has always been a challenge. Over the next two years, the DAC’s International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) is working to better understand how to deliver the Addis Ababa Action Agenda in these, the most difficult operating environments, mixing ODA, private flows, domestic resources and other flows to provide customised financial strategies for individual fragile contexts. In May, as part of this work, the OECD partnered with financing specialists from the UN Multi Partner Trust Fund Office and the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs to support better financing for the humanitarian-development-peace nexus in Sudan. The team tested INCAF’s emerging Financing for Stability model, and helped build on the widespread support from government, UN, private sector and civil society for taking concrete steps towards a New Way of Working in Sudan, a broad package that will include:

designing collective outcomes together to address the ongoing protracted crisis and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals
planning and reporting progress together through a multi-stakeholder platform, and
developing and implementing a financing strategy to support collective outcomes

The timing was right for seizing the opportunity of the changing humanitarian, economic and political context. Substantively, the mission recommended a two phase financing approach, with phase one starting immediately, using humanitarian and development programmes and finance to address the needs and root causes of the current protracted humanitarian crisis in Sudan; alongside “readiness” actions to prepare Sudan for a potential future increase in development investments, picking up on opportunities presented by the possible temporary lifting of economic sanctions in July. Phase two, if and when Sudan exits designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, paving the way for an arrangement with creditors and new opportunities for how development is delivered and financed, will involve a refocus on collective outcomes that, alongside addressing root causes, include a stronger focus on social sectors, economic growth and good governance, alongside management of disaster and crisis risks, working with and through the Government of Sudan.

Learning from the field testing is now being used to improve INCAF’s Financing for Stability model. Meanwhile, the OECD, and the other financing specialists, will continue to support the UN Resident and Humanitarian Co-ordinator to implement the financing strategy in Sudan. Further field testing of the model is expected during the second part of 2017. Read the report here.

March 2017

Access the new format of the newsletter here !

February 2017

Addressing cross-border risks in the Sahel: Dakar Workshop

Approximately half of the 836 million people living in extreme poverty live in fragile contexts – this is likely to rise to 80% by 2035 (OECD 2016). The OECD’s 2016 States of Fragility is aimed at addressing this challenge through a more holistic approach that uses a multi-dimensional framework to consider the political, economic, security, societal and environmental drivers of fragility. However, if we want to have a real impact upon people’s lives and meet our commitments of ‘leaving no-one behind’, this framework needs to be translated into concrete, practical actions that improve the effectiveness of local, national and international actions.

The Sahel region of West Africa is characterised by a complex mix of challenges and a range of trans-boundary risks, including demographic change, urbanization, illicit trafficking and smuggling, environmental and climatic change, violent extremism, food insecurity, economic challenges and unemployment (particularly amongst youth). These challenges have resulted in growing instability in the region. In this context the OECD, in collaboration with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, convened a range of stakeholders, including government, the UN, civil society and donors on 22^nd and 23^rd of February in Dakar, Senegal to consider the relevance and application of States of Fragility recommendations in addressing these complex and inter-linked challenges in the region. The workshop, drawing on the OECD’s systems analysis framework, resulted in the identification of a set of priority actions that could be implemented at regional, national and local levels by different agencies to address cross-border risks contributing to fragility in the region.

Highlights from the analysis included actions to better address the societal and political dimensions as key underlying structural drivers of fragility; as well as programme interventions with a focus on the role of religion, women and youth. Participants also identified the need to better link to global frameworks including the SDGs and other mechanisms such as Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security; Resolution 2250 on youth, peace and security; and Resolution 2282 on sustaining peace. These findings will be captured in a report that will be available toward the end of March 2017. For further information, please contact Sara Batmanglich sara.batmanglich@oecd.org or Hugh MacLeman hugh.macleman@oecd.org

Risk & Resilience, Mauritania Workshop

The OECD’s resilience systems analysis (RSA) framework is increasingly seen by OECD DAC members and their partners – in particular the UN system – as a critical tool in ensuring that programme planning is risk informed, cross-sectoral; integrated across different layers of society; and supports more coherent development, humanitarian and peace and statebuilding actions. A key component of this work is the use of the RSA to support the next round of UNDAF planning in West and Central Africa, at the request of the UNDG West and Central Africa Resilience Working Group and UN Regional Directors in June 2016.

In line with this work, the OECD will be supporting an RSA in Mauritania on 25^th and 26^th April 2017. The RSA will convene UN agencies, government, donors, civil society and experts, with a focus on achieving the following objectives:

Fostering a common risk and vulnerability diagnosis to better understand people and systems’ resilience to a broad range of risks and stressors to inform UNDAF Country Common Assessments (CCA);
Providing the UNCT with a programmatic approach that contributes to the identification of common priorities to strengthen the resilience of people and systems;
Ensuring UNDAF planning
1. incorporates cross-sectoral approaches;
2. strengthens the linkages between UN agencies’ programming at regional, national, sub-national, community and household layers;
3. improves coherence between development, humanitarian and peace and state-building actions;
4. Supporting the development of a theory of change, based on a common understanding of shared outcomes across UN agencies.

Outcomes from the RSA will be shared with the UNCT and will also help to inform approaches to delivering on new UNDAF guidelines for the UN system. For further details, please contact Hugh MacLeman hugh.macleman@oecd.org

What’s New?

The UN Secretary General has launched the UN SDG Action Campaign with the mission of ensuring that the SDG agenda is brought to life. As part of this initiative, the 2017 Global Festival of Ideas for Sustainable Development has brought together SDG actors in order to share innovative tools and approaches to tackle development problems. You can find the video of the plenary session here.
On April 5, the OECD will hold its 2017 Global Forum on Development on the theme of “Working together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals” (SDG). The Forum will focus on how to close the gap between actual and desired level of investments to achieve the SDGs, notably through the engagement of the private sector. Participants will take stock of existing initiatives to catalyze the power of the private sector in supporting the SDGs, explore new avenues of partnerships to mobilize resources and understand how the OECD can help. More information can be found here.
The February 2017 report Financing the Frontier from Mercy Corps and the DFID Financial Sector Deepening Africa program looks at the challenges and opportunities in fragility-affected States in Africa when developing financial products and access, using DFID’s categorization of fragile and conflict-affected states. The report also provides insights into the “how to” of financial market developing programming.
Saferworld’s most recent publication Informal armies examines the issue of the many South Sudanese community defence groups in South Sudan’s civil war. The publication provides perspectives on the challenge these groups raise for security provision, the South Sudanese State and peacebuilding nationally.

January 2017

New Publication : Hitting the Target but Missing the Point? Assessing Donor Support for Inclusive and Legitimate Politics in Fragile Societies

In January 2017, INCAF published the findings of the Germany supported study entitled “Hitting the target, but missing the point?” Following the end of the New Deal’s five-year pilot phase, this paper looks at how bilateral and multilateral donors have conceptualized and implemented their commitment to promote Peace and Statebuilding Goal 1 (PSG1) ‘legitimate and inclusive political settlements and conflict resolution’.

Based on empirical evidence acquired through case studies in four g7+ pilot countries (Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan and Timor-Leste) the report notes that efforts to advance thinking about, and practice of, achieving PSG1 in fragile contexts remain largely experimental and have not yet been brought to scale. Concluding that the New Deal has not yet led to a fundamental rethink of how donors can effectively support inclusive and legitimate politics in fragile contexts, the report puts forward a set of recommendations to support greater implementation of PSG1.

The report is available on INCAF’s website (www.oecd.org/dac/conflict-fragility-resilience/docs/Hitting_the_target.pdf). For further information about the report, please contact the INCAF secretariat (sara.batmanglich@oecd.org).

Addressing cross-border risks in the Sahel: Dakar Workshop

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development will host a workshop to ‘operationalise’ the States of Fragility findings in Dakar, Senegal on February 22 and 23.

The workshop will bring together government, civil society, UN agencies, the private sector and bilateral donors, as well as other key experts in the region, to analyse and address cross-border risks in the Sahel, using the five dimensions of fragility outlined in the OECD’s fragility framework.

The Dakar workshop, supported by the OECD, will start by building a common understanding of cross-border risks in the Sahel, focusing on how these risks drive violence and fragility in the region. This risk analysis will then help participants to identify programming priorities, and to agree a practical programming ‘roadmap’ to address cross-border risks and strengthen resilience to fragility and violence in the Sahel.

The workshop will use the OECD’s resilience systems analysismethodology.

States of Fragility 2016, an OECD flagship report, is based on a new risk-based approach to monitoring fragility through five distinct dimensions. However, translating this multi-dimensional understanding of fragility into practical approaches that make a real difference ‘on the ground’ has remained challenging. In addition, the report finds that new programming approaches are required to keep pace with the new reality of violence.

For further information, please contact Sara Batmanglich sara.batmanglich@oecd.org or Hugh MacLeman hugh.macleman@oecd.org

States of Fragility 2016: Global Launches

States of Fragility 2016 launches and discussions have been held in:

November:

Nairobi, at the Global Partnership High Level Meeting

December:

Oslo, hosted by Norad

January:

Brussels, hosted by the European Commission

Washington, 3 events hosted by USAID, the US Department of State, and the United States Institute of Peace

Many thanks to the members who have hosted these launches!

Launches are now being planned in London, Geneva, Dublin and Stockholm. If you would like to discuss hosting a launch event, please contact sarah.willis@oecd.org

What’s New?

This is a new, on-going segment of the newsletter used to highlight current and/or up-coming events, publications and partnerships. Contributions to this section from INCAF members and relevant partners are very welcome! Please note this is not intended to be an exhaustive list and the INCAF Secretariat will vet submissions for relevance.

On 24 January 2017 the UN General Assembly held a High Level Dialogue on ‘Building Sustainable Peace for All: Synergies between the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustaining Peace’. Remarks by H.E. Ms Margot Elisabeth Wallström, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, President of the Security Council for the month of January 2017 and IDPS co-chair can be found here.
The Global Alliance for Reporting Progress on Promoting Peaceful, Just, and Inclusive Societies is a network of Member States, civil society organisations and private sector companies that aims to support effective reporting on the achievement of Sustainable Goal 16 and its inter-linkages with the rest of the 2030 Agenda. A letter and supporting material from INCAF co-chair, ASG Martinez-Solimon, to the IDPS co-chairs is attached.
On 12 December, at OCHA's annual Global Humanitarian Policy Forum, Deputy Secretary-General Eliasson announced the release of OCHA’s annual publication World Humanitarian Data and Trends 2016. You can now interact with the 2016 report through its companion microsite www.unocha.org/datatrends2016. For further details please contact Lilian Barajas (barajas@un.org).
The Brookings Report ‘Aid Effectiveness in Fragile States: How Bad Is It and How Can We Improve?’ uses the g7+ New Deal principles and the OECD’s Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States to consider what constitutes effective aid delivery in fragile states and how it compares to support provided in stable situations. It also considers individual donor practices and performances in fragile states.

December 2016

States of Fragility 2016

States of Fragility 2016: Understanding Violence was successfully launched during the 2^nd High Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, in Nairobi on 30 November.

The launch was hosted by the Irish Minister of State for the Diaspora and Overseas Development Aid, Minister Joe McHugh. The Honduran Vice Minister of International Cooperation and Promotion, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ms Maria del Carmen Nasser de Ramos also spoke, together with the OECD Deputy Secretary General, Mr Doug Frantz.

All of the panellists spoke to the very real impact of the report’s key focus area, violence, both on their countries and the conflict affected, fragile and at-risk contexts they’re supporting. All strongly welcomed the report’s new risk-based approach to monitoring the dimensions of fragility and continued analysis of financial flows in support of fragile contexts.

INCAF Secretariat Staff will now be visiting a number of capitals to present the report’s key findings in more depth. The Secretariat will also take forward discussions with INCAF members on how it can support members to operationalise the report’s findings, including through the 2017-18 INCAF work plan.

The full report is available at http://oe.cd/1Gd. Further promotion of the report through social media and/or with partners is very welcome. Please let the Secretariat know if there’s anything we can do to support you in this.

INCAF DLM

The ninth INCAF Director Level Meeting (DLM) was held in Nairobi on Tuesday 29 November, immediately preceding the second High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC). Sessions covered the New Deal after Stockholm; the OECD-DAC’s Temporary Working Group on Refugees and Migration; INCAF’s workplan for the next biennium; as well as approved the INCAF-led study on donor support to legitimate and inclusive politics in fragile contexts. In particular, the “PSG1 (Inclusive Politics)” study received strong support for exploring one of the most complex and challenging aspects of development cooperation. It will be published in early 2017

November 2016

SFR update

States of Fragility 2016: Understanding Violence, an OECD flagship publication, takes a long hard look at violence in the world – and what we should do about it. Understanding Violence is the result of more than a year of research and analysis by top violence and fragility scholars. It covers emerging thinking about violence, presents a new risk-based approach to monitoring the dimensions of fragility, and looks at financial flows in support of fragile contexts. The report has benefited greatly from the inputs of a reference group of experts – including many INCAF members – and from the conclusions from the violence workshop at the INCAF meetings in June. The report will be launched on 30 November at the High Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation in Nairobi.

Welcome to Sarah Willis

We hope you will join us in welcoming Sarah Willis to the INCAF team. Sarah will be taking over the day to day management of the INCAF network, as Sara Batmanglich moves to focus on the research areas of INCAF’s 2017/2018 workplan. Sarah comes to us from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia, where she was Assistant Director in the Peacekeeping and Conflict Prevention area, including engaging with the UN on policy development in peacebuilding and conflict prevention. Prior to that Sarah led Australia’s humanitarian and development aid programmes in fragile and conflict affected states in West Africa and Afghanistan. Sarah can be reached at sarah.willis@oecd.org

Risk and Resilience summary

The Experts Group on Risk and Resilience held its 6^th meeting in Paris on 27 and 28 October. The meeting was attended by around 40 experts drawn from donors, the UN system and civil society partners. With a focus on translating the commitments from the post-2015 commitments into practical actions on the ground - in particular, strengthening common-risk informed context analysis and greater coherence between humanitarian, development and peace and statebuilding communities – participants explored good practice approaches from Sweden, Japan and others to ensure that we make good on our promise of ‘leaving no one behind’ and reaching the ‘furthest behind first’.

The strengthening of resilience in fragile states was highlighted as a priority during the meeting, with presentations covering Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and the MENA region; as well as progress in translating early warning into early action; and applying resilience approaches to addressing the root causes of migration.

Presentations from the meeting are now available on Basecamp and a report with next steps and actions will be forthcoming in a couple of weeks’ time.

For further information, please contact Hugh MacLeman hugh.macleman@oecd.org

2016 Progress Report of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation

The 2016 Progress Report of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation has been released and is now available on the OECD e-Library:

This report compiles fresh country-level evidence on the effectiveness of development co-operation. The Global Partnership’s 2016 monitoring round drew record participation, both in terms of numbers and of diversity: 81 low and middle-income countries; 125 development partners; 74 development organisations; and hundreds of civil society organisations, private sector representatives, trade unions, foundations, parliamentarians and local governments. The data and evidence generated covers the vast majority (up to 89%) of development co-operation finance programmed for these 81 countries.

Co-published by OECD and UNDP, this report provides the evidence base for the upcoming Second High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership, to take place in Nairobi 28 November – 2 December.

October 2016

States of Fragility 2016

On Thursday, 22 September 2016 a High-Level Panel at UN Headquarters discussed the summary document

We are grateful for the event being hosted by Belgium, and opened by Minister Alexander de Croo, followed by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria, who discussed the importance of tackling violence and fragility in the post-2015 world. Read the remarks by SG Gurria.

Highlights from States of Fragility 2016 were presented:

Clionadh Raleigh, ACLED, lead on the violence data and research
Reza Lahidji, ILPI, lead on the multidimensional fragility framework and financial flows

A discussion of the findings from the report, the global state of violence and fragility, and different responses to these pressing questions, followed, featuring:

Magdy Martínez-Solimán, Assistant Administrator and Director, UNDP
Ewen McDonald, Deputy Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia

The panel was moderated by Wendy MacClinchy, lead author of the Highlights Report

a replay of the event’s webcast is available here:

http://webtv.un.org/search/states-of-fragility-2016-a-violent-world-an-oecd-flagship-report/5138653702001?term=oecd

Financing tools and training for protracted crises, fragile and at-risk situations

The OECD has commissioned a study titled “Financing tools and training for protracted crises, fragile and at-risk situations”, which will be taking place over the coming months. The study will produce a series of practical tools and training materials to support decision-makers at the country-level to better understand what financing options are available, how they function and how they could be used, combined and layered, as part of an effective financing strategy that supports country-level investment priorities.

The study will build on the mappings of financing instruments undertaken by the OECD, World Bank and UN in the lead up to the World Humanitarian Summit and will include a series of global-level interviews and three country case studies in Myanmar, Lebanon and Somalia. The consultant leading the research – Lydia Poole - may contact you and your colleagues in the case study countries to support evidence gathering and participate in an interview in the next few weeks. Lydia can be contacted on lydiapooleconsulting@gmail.com if you would like to find out more about the research. Thank you in advance, for your support and participation.

Revised website

We are pleased to share with you a link to our revised web-site, we hope you find this refreshed look user-friendly and useful. Please remember to link to our new page and we’d be delighted to have your feedback.

September 2016

States of Fragility 2016 : A Violent World – High Level Panel in New York : 22 September, hosted by Minister Alexander de Croo of Belgium

On 22 September, a High-Level Panel will discuss the highlights of States of Fragility 2016: A Violent World. The full report will be released during the High Level Meeting of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation in Nairobi in November 2016.

Moderator: Wendy MacClinchy, lead author of SFR 2016: A Violent World - highlights

The panel will be opened by Minister Alexander de Croo.

He will be followed by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria, who will discuss the importance of tackling violence and fragility in the post-2015 world.

Highlights from A Violent World will then be presented by the leads on the specialist topics:

Clionadh Raleigh, ACLED, lead on the violence data and research
Reza Lahidji, ILPI, lead on the multidimensional fragility framework and financial flows

A discussion of the findings from the report, the global state of violence and fragility, and different responses to these pressing questions, will follow, featuring:

Alejandro Alvarez, Team Leader, Rule of Law, Justice and Security, UNDP

Ewen McDonald, Deputy Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia

There will then be a question and answer session from the floor.

The event will be held on 22 September, from 3pm to 4:30pm, at UN Headquarters (Room 11) in New York, and will also be webcast (details to come). Please confirm your attendance to anais.fahd@oecd.org

Other Upcoming Events
Expert workshop on “Developing the TOSSD statistical framework: measuring collective actions supporting sustainable development” Lisbon, Portugal, 19-20 September 2016

This workshop will provide crucial input to the design of TOSSD, as it will focus on the practical application of statistical approaches and tools vis-à-vis officially-supported investment in development enablers relating to i) peace, security and human rights and ii) migration. In particular, the workshop will (i) identify and map out key features of activities, institutions and instruments supporting these areas and (ii) consider how measurement boundaries could be established.

The overall objective of the workshop will be to advance international thinking on how to build a sound, coherent and functional statistical measurement system that captures official support beyond ODA in sectors of increasing importance to achieving of the SDGs. In particular the workshop will seek to:

Clarify how finance supporting specific categories of development enablers in the fields of peace and security, human rights and migration could be identified and evaluated for reporting purposes.
Identify relevant international, regional and national institutions operating in these areas whose activities would be TOSSD-eligible.
Explore approaches for clarifying the TOSSD “majority of benefits to developing countries” measurement criterion.

June 2016

Highlights of the INCAF Task Team Meetings in Paris, 27 – 29 June

From 27 to 29 June, INCAF successfully held three days of task team meetings in Paris, convening around 50 participants each day.

The first day of the meetings consisted of a workshop on violence, which was hosted by INCAF’s Knowledge and Policy Task Team (KPTT) and divided up into three sessions. Session one covered political instability as a risk factor for violence, looking particularly at political contest between elites, while session two focused on programming in the context of violent extremism (VE), and session three discussed ‘social’ violence, emphasising gang, urban and criminal violence. The sessions included presentations by experts and analysts working on Central Africa as well as representatives of civil society organisations such as the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, Small Arms Survey, Mercy Corps, International Alert or Cure Violence. Some of the key messages evolving from the day are that INCAF’s violence-relevant policy and programming responses should be based on an understanding that ‘social’ and ‘political’ forms of violence are often directly related and interlinked, reflecting a causal relationship from inter-personal to more organised, societal and politicized forms of violence. It was stressed that violence is the most important predictor of further violence, making it imperative to contain its spread. This also requires tackling the norms conducive to it – a process that may require longer time horizons, but that will pay off over time. Additionally, the need to focus on the drivers and impacts of violence was emphasised, as well as the necessity to truly put people at the centre of our interventions, going beyond support to institutions only.

The second day was hosted by INCAF’s Implementation and Reform Task Team (IRTT) and focused on taking the New Deal forward after the Stockholm and Nairobi meetings. The meeting allowed INCAF members to reflect on the outcomes of the first phase of the New Deal, including its successes and challenges, as well as to identify priorities moving forward. Participants stressed, among other aspects, that the New Deal has firmly arrived on the global political level, and that its principles are now strongly reflected in members’ fragility strategies. Agenda 2030 and the SDGs, particularly Goal 16 and 17, were further noted to portray a useful framework to take the New Deal to the next phase. At the same time, it was agreed that there needs to be further diffusion at the country-level and cross-governmentally. Participants also emphasised that moving forward, INCAF should re-focus its efforts on addressing the sources of fragility and conflict, and integrate the prevention agenda more strongly at the country level. Members further talked about the possibility of creating a ‘vision’ document to capture INCAF’s position towards the New Deal, highlighting past successes and changed approaches to be incorporated into the next phase, among other issues.

The third day consisted of a joint KPTT and IRTT workshop on financing instruments for protracted crises, fragility and sustaining peace. The workshop included presentations on INCAF members’ experiences using a range of specific financing instruments – from multi-donor trust funds to incentives-based instruments or technical cooperation -, and presentations by financing experts from the International Finance Corporation, the Foro Nacional Internacional as well as an independent expert on humanitarian financing. During the day, participants stressed the need to carefully tailor the specific financing instrument to the relevant context, drawing attention to the strengths and weaknesses of each tool. The INCAF Secretariat is currently preparing summaries for the full three days of meetings, which will be distributed to participants shortly.

New DAC chair elected

The DAC elected its new chair, Charlotte Petri Gornitzka from Sweden. Sweden is the co-chair of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, and has long been an active player in development co-operation in fragile situations and protracted crises. We therefore hope that the new DAC Chair will help support conflict and fragility issues in her new post, and we look forward to supporting her as she takes up her new role.

Please see the OECD news release on the new DAC Chair.

www.oecd.org/newsroom/sweden-s-charlotte-petri-gornitzka-appointed-new-dac-chair.htm

May 2016

World Humanitarian Summit – a summary

The World Humanitarian Summit, held in Istanbul on May 23-24, was an important event in consolidating political will around the critical changes required to make the humanitarian system ‎more effective at dealing with crises. The main outcomes of the Summit were as follows:

Humanitarian financing must become more efficient: The most concrete outcome of the summit was the top 30 donors and aid agencies signing a “Grand Bargain” to make aid more efficient. In addition to this, a shift towards greater use of cash transfers in crises was generally endorsed, with the UK and Italy offering specific cash targets. Multi-annual financing was also promoted, and participants agreed to raise the ceiling of the Central Emergency Response Fund, which funds more flexible and timely responses by UN agencies, from USD 500 million to USD 1 billion. Discussions about the monitoring of these commitments are ongoing, and the OECD is well placed to take up that role, with support from UNHCR, Germany, and other OECD member states.

Humanitarian response must be locally driven: A target of 25% has been set for direct humanitarian funding to local organisations. The NEAR network – bringing together southern humanitarian NGOs – was launched. Twenty-seven international NGOs signed the Charter4Change, committing to pass 20% of their funding to national NGOs by 2018, and to address the negative impact of recruiting local staff into international organisations.

Education is a humanitarian priority: A new fund, Education Cannot Wait, was launched, with a target of USD 3.85 billion over five years, to deliver education in crisis settings. Dubai Cares, the EU, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the US contributed USD 90 million to the fund.

Humanitarian response must better include people with disabilities: Nearly 100 governments and aid agencies signed on to a Charter to better meet the needs of people with disabilities in humanitarian crises.

The world must invest in prevention and risk mitigation: The finance ministers of the Vulnerable 20 Group, with the World Bank and the UN, launched a new partnership to help their countries better prepare for shocks. Another alliance on urban crises includes preparing for crises together with local municipal actors. The UN committed to improving its risk analysis and Liberia announced a new regional early warning system for West Africa. The UN asked the OECD to include a disaster risk reduction marker in its ODA reporting system.

Innovative financing must step up: Several initiatives were announced, including: a humanitarian impact bond where the initial private investors will be reimbursed by traditional donors if outputs are met, a global Islamic endowment fund, and a private sector risk financing mechanism for the most vulnerable countries.

Regional organisations should play a role: The summit gave birth to a Regional Organisations Humanitarian Action Network (ROHAN) to help regional organisations formalise their role in the humanitarian architecture.

The humanitarian sector is an eco-system: This summit sought to include ideas from a wide range of actors, which meant that it was the only post-2015 process not to include inter-governmental negotiations. This made the Summit slightly chaotic, but did ensure that voices without power were heard.

There were other areas where no, or little, progress was made. Despite a High-Level roundtable on “political leadership to end and prevent conflict” there was little in the way of concrete promises. However, there were some interesting pledges, for example France declaring that it would not use its Security Council veto in cases of mass atrocity. Similarly, despite vocal support for International Humanitarian Law, there was no real progress towards greater protection of civilians in conflict. There was also little progress on a better deal for refugees and the host countries that support them; however there is still space for that discussion at the High Level events on mass migration in September. One major ambition of the Summit - to bring greater coherence between development and humanitarian actors in crisis situations – remains a work in progress, with some actors fearing the politicisation of humanitarian action if the two draw closer. Finally, there is not yet consensus over how the more than 1500 commitments made will be taken forward; that will likely become clearer over the coming weeks.

INCAF’s commitments to the World Humanitarian Summit were tabled at the High Level Leaders’ Roundtable “Changing Peoples’ Lives – from Delivering Aid to Ending Need”. These commitments outlined plans to deliver on the promises made under the Stockholm Declaration, including the promise to work more closely with humanitarian actors

Read the OECD’s commitments to the World Humanitarian Summit here, and see other data and analysis related to the summit here.

The International Dialogue at the World Humanitarian Summit

The International Dialogue hosted a high-level panel event at the World Humanitarian Summit, together with UNDP and BMZ, titled Our collective Contribution to Building Peaceful and Inclusive Societies and Sustainable Development In the 2030 Era, on 24 May. Nine panellists – including ministers from Somalia, Sweden and Timor-Leste, and senior representatives from UNDP, the World Bank, BMZ, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Oxfam, and the United Nations Office the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) – discussed what bridging the humanitarian and development divide could look like in practice, and how actors from both communities can forge more effective partnerships in contexts affected by fragility and conflict. For more information, please visit the International Dialogue website.

Nairobi meetings of the International Dialogue

The International Dialogue will be hosting two meetings in Nairobi, Kenya, this week: i) a meeting of the New Deal Implementation Working Group on 1-2 June, and ii) a workshop-style meeting to discuss the future of the International Dialogue on 3-4 June. The first meeting aims to discuss and determine the Implementation Working Group’s response to the call by the wider International Dialogue for a scaled up role in country level implementation, in terms of what it will look like in practice. The second will be an opportunity for the International Dialogue steering committee to reflect on and work out the next steps for the International Dialogue – including renewed mandates, an action and work plan, actions to implement the Independent Review’s recommendations, and structural and hosting arrangements for the International Dialogue Secretariat. The outcomes of these discussions will be brought forward for approval at the next Steering Group meeting (date tbc).

April 2016

Update from Stockholm
Members and supporters of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, from over 40 countries and organizations, gathered in Stockholm on 5 April to commit to speeding up and scaling up their efforts to prevent conflict and address fragility by tackling its root causes. This meeting reaffirmed the International Dialogue’s commitment to creating clear pathways out of fragility and towards greater resilience, as a means of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Participants endorsed the Stockholm Declaration on Addressing Fragility and Building Peace in a Changing World, which outlines what members must do to revive commitment to the New Deal and take it the next level. Together, they called for stepped up commitment to prevention and tackling the root cause of conflict and fragility. The International Dialogue recognises it cannot do this alone but must work with new stakeholders that can carry its message. It will therefore join forces with new allies from the humanitarian community, other countries also grappling with conflict and fragility, and a wider network of like-minded stakeholders. This month, members of the International Dialogue will follow up the Stockholm Declaration at the World Humanitarian Summit about how to forge stronger collaborative partnerships between humanitarian and development actors based on shared commitments to these goals

Preparation for Istanbul

Preparations for the World Humanitarian Summit – to be held in Istanbul on May 23/24 - are in full swing. INCAF members are putting together a set of commitments to help deliver on the Stockholm Declaration, which asks International Dialogue members to transcend the divide between humanitarian and development actors, provide more effective development support for protracted humanitarian crises, and to work more closely with humanitarian actors. The INCAF commitment will be delivered at the World Humanitarian Summit High-Level Leaders’ Roundtable on Changing People’s Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Needs. A new draft of the INCAF commitments, incorporating the comments received to date, will be sent to INCAF members for approval in the middle of this week. The Secretariat will also undertake a mapping of INCAF member presence and events at the Summit, to facilitate bilateral meetings, and will send around a list of potentially interesting side events that members might like to attend. The OECD will be represented at the Summit by Deputy Secretary General Doug Frantz, and the DAC chair, Erik Solheim, will also attend.

Publications in the OECD Development Policy Papers Series and Blog Post

Two policy papers were published in the OECD Development Policy Papers Series in March: “Improving Security and Justice Programming in Fragile Situations: Better Political Engagement, More Change Management” and “Good Development Support in Fragile, At-Risk and Crisis Affected Contexts”. The paper on security and justice programming is based on a case study analysis of nine security and justice programmes in Burundi, Guatemala, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste. It proposes that senior decision makers implement four critical enablers that can help improve the quality of international support in this field. These include enabling programmes to engage politically, increasing the duration of security and justice programmes to 6 to 10 years, developing detailed longer-term results as part of programmes and ensuring programme implementation is adjustable. As the report suggests, three steps of action can help implement these critical areas: authorising a more permissive programming environment, creating higher standards of accountability for programme design and implementation as well as better monitoring, and creating a corporate openness to learning. The second paper is based on a review of existing literature, including OECD DAC peer reviews, International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) member self-assessment surveys carried out in 2013/2014 and interviews with representatives of 12 OECD DAC member countries. It presents twelve lessons, grouped into three thematic areas: 1) building institutional fitness 2) aspiring to deliver change and 3) leaving no one behind. Cyprien Fabre, policy analyst with the OECD team working on conflict, fragility and resilience, recently presented the key findings of the report as a post to our blog platform. As he explains, to achieve good development support in fragile, at-risk and crisis affected contexts, policy aspirations need to be aligned with domestic political realities, institutional incentives, behaviours and standard procedures.

March 2016

Stockholm: Addressing Fragility and Building Peace in a Changing World both groups?

On 5 April the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding will hold their 5th Global Meeting. This meeting will reaffirm the members’ collective commitment to addressing the root causes of conflict, fragility, and violence and to creating clear pathways out of fragility and towards greater resilience, as a means of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Minister Isabella Lövin, the Co-Chair of the International Dialogue, will be joined by Ministers and other high-level representatives from member countries of the g7+, the International Network on and Fragility (INCAF), and senior representatives from member organisations of the Civil Society Platform on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS). More on the meeting at www.pbsbdialogue.org/en/events/2016/04/05/fifth-global-meeting-international-dialogue/

From the G7+, the Kabul Communique

On behalf of the g7+ Secretariat, we would like to share with you the link to the Kabul Communiqué of the 4th Ministerial meeting on 23-24 March 2016 that took place in Kabul, Afghanistan.

www.g7plus.org/en/resources/kabul-communique-kabul-afghanistan-23rd-24th-march-2014

New publication: Good Development Support in Fragile, At-Risk and Crisis Affected Contexts: A Short Review

New thinking is emerging on the nature of fragility and risk. This includes a shift from a one-dimensional understanding of fragility towards a more holistic approach in which degrees of fragility exist on a spectrum of dimensions and risks; which recognises the need for collaborative, regional and global solutions to tackle the root causes and consequences of fragility and risk when they are transnational; and which acknowledges the need to broaden the use of institutional influences, policy levers, and expertise “beyond aid”. Parallel to this, many development co-operation agencies are undergoing major reviews to meet their commitments under the newly agreed Sustainable Development Goals, Paris climate agreement and the outcomes of the 2015 Financing for Development conference.

In this context, the OECD commissioned a study as a practical contribution to current learning and thinking on how to work more effectively in fragile, at-risk and crisis-affected contexts. The study is based on a review of the existing literature, especially OECD DAC peer reviews, International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) member self-assessment surveys carried out in 2013/14, and interviews with representatives of 12 OECD DAC member countries.

The study identifies 12 lessons grouped into 3 thematic areas:

1 building institutional fitness, which includes commitments, investments, cultural and strategic shifts required at the highest levels of decision making and influence

2 aspiring to deliver change, rather than short-term results, which describes a set of characteristics of good development support at a more operational level

3 leaving no-one behind, which includes cross-cutting, principled, thematic and global issues.

These lessons are illustrated with a wealth of good practice examples from DAC members.

The study will be published on 5 April and distributed to this mailing list.

ODA and Peace and Security: two articles

Please find two interesting articles on ODA in the area of peace and security

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And lastly, please visit our INCAF page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DACINCAF

January 2016

Recent INCAF Task Team Meetings

Last week in Paris INCAF had three days of successful Task Team meetings with between 40-70 participants each day. There was a strong appreciation of the joint sessions – one, with the Experts Group on Risk and Resilience which took place in the morning of the Implementation and Reform Task Team (IRTT) meeting, as well as a one day workshop held with GOVNET on Goal 16. INCAF was thanked for serving as a platform to bring together these different communities, as a proactive way to begin to break down the siloes that will impede better working in the cross-cutting SDG era. The takeaways from the joint sessions were:

the current landscape of crises and conflicts is calling for a redefinition of the shared space and working relationship between humanitarian and development actors – with greater emphasis on ensuring that the added value and comparative advantage of development and humanitarian approaches are focused at the right ‘level’ within fragile situations to meet both humanitarian needs and also address drivers of fragility, and
that Goal 16 is a game-changer that will require us to leapfrog our innovation in the way we approach governance and conflict, on the architecture we work within, the programming we rely upon, and on how we collaborate with partners.

Members also heard about the research findings from a study that emerged from an IRTT workstream on PSG1 entitled “Assessing Donors’ Ability to Support Legitimate and Inclusive Politics”. The study has generously been supported by Germany, and BMZ and INCAF will be hosting a joint session on the research entitled “It’s politics, stupid” at the World Bank’s Fragility Forum in Washington DC, 3rd March from 3:40-5pm.

There was also a strong call for INCAF to have a statement for the World Humanitarian Summit, and to ensure that the importance of conflict prevention and peacebuilding being highlighted in the context of crises and what we can do better. Throughout, there was much talk about the implementation of SDGs in fragile states – with continuing concern that this will require further breaking from the norm and typical ways of working, and encouragement from members for INCAF to draw together its experience of implementation in these environments – including those that have come from the first phase of New Deal Implementation – in order to support countries and partners in taking forward Agenda 2030.

INCAF’s Task Team on Knowledge and Policy met on 22 January 2016 to discuss the forthcoming States of Fragility 2016 report. During a final workshop on an updated multidimensional framework on fragility, members expressed support for the concept emerging from the extensive consultation through three expert workshops: a five-dimensional, universal, risk-based concept. The afternoon was dedicated to the presentation of key findings of the violence research conducted by ACLED, Sussex University. These include the need to work politically in conflict settings, and to understand local dynamics, drivers and manifestations of violence and conflict. Members expressed great interest in this work and agreed that there was a need to better understand violence in fragile environments and its policy implications for international actors.

Work on a multidimensional framework for fragility is thus advancing at the OECD, and the INCAF Secretariat will continue refining the approach and work towards finding appropriate metrics. The framework will then feed into the 2016 States of Fragility Report (forthcoming in late autumn 2016). The multidimensional, universal approach is a move away from the OECD's past practice, using a "fragile states list" for its monitoring and analysis. An update on the OECD’s work on the States of Fragility Report will be provided at the World Bank's Fragility Forum, on 2nd March (3:30-5:30).

Expert Group on Risk and Resilience

The 5th OECD Experts’ Group on Risk and Resilience met in Paris from 18th to the 20th of January with strong participation from a range of OECD Member States, multilateral organisations and civil society and policy makers. The meeting focused on developing practical, concrete steps for operationalising resilience within respective agencies’ strategies and programmes, particularly with respect to the commitments made to Agenda 2030, and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction. Key outputs from the meeting included a set of recommendations focused on translating commitments to resilience within Agenda 2030 into practical plans; as well as the development of key messages to inform the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit. The Experts’ Group also held a joint session with the International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) focused on building resilience in fragile and conflict affected states and building greater coherence and complementarity between humanitarian action and longer term development objectives. Members of both networks agreed to develop a joint statement from this session for inclusion in the High Level meeting in Stockholm in February and the World Humanitarian Summit.

The 5th Experts Group meeting concluded with Members agreeing priorities for 2016 and these will be available, along with a detailed report from the meeting in early February.

News from the International Dialogue

The International Dialogue will be holding its 5th Global meeting on 5 April, in Stockholm Sweden. The next steering group meeting of the International Dialogue will take place on 29 February in Washington, DC.
The secretariat of the International Dialogue is working in partnership with the Effective Institutions Platform to design and implement a country dialogue on the Use of Country Systems in Somalia. Discussions on a similar process are ongoing with Afghanistan.
The International Dialogue has showcased its support toprivate sector in FCAS work at the 2016 Arab-DAC Dialogue on Development: Achieving the 2030 Agenda, which was held at the OPEC Fund for International Development in Vienna, during a panel session to discuss how Arab and DAC development cooperation providers can enable the private sector to contribute to implementing the 2030 Agenda in FCAS. This builds on the work done recently by the Dialogue on private sector engagement in fragile states, including the recently published brochure on International Standards for Responsible Business in Conflict-Affected and Fragile Environments.

Dates for the Diary

International Dialogue Steering Group Meeting, 29 February 2016, Washington DC
Fragility Forum, 1-3 March 2016, Washington DC (side event on 2 and 3 March)
International dialogue, Global Meeting, 5 April, Stockholm
World Humanitarian Summit, 23-24 May, Istanbul

December 2015

States of Fragility Report, 2016

The INCAF Secretariat has concluded three consultative workshops to shape its new methodology to conceptualise and measure fragility. This work will determine how the OECD’s States of Fragility Reports will monitor fragility from 2016 onward. The multidimensional model will eventually replace the Fragile States list currently in use. Summaries of the three workshops, hosted by BMZ in Berlin, the African Development Bank in Abidjan, and IDB in Washington, D.C., are online, as is an input paper for the last workshop. Over 100 experts from academia, policy making, international organisations, partner governments, civil society, and INCAF member countries participated, and the INCAF Secretariat would like to thank all those involved for their contribution. The INCAF Secretariat is now developing a working paper that outlines the new methodology, and which will be reviewed by the INCAF Task Team on Knowledge & Policy in January before it feeds into the OECD’s States of Fragility Report 2016. Also as part of the consultations, the OECD is hosting a series of blogposts about fragility, with contributions from ADB, Saferworld, PRIO, etc. All this information is available online at http://www.oecd.org/dac/governance-peace/conflictfragilityandresilience/sfr-multidimensional-fragility-framework.htm, and feedback to incaf.secretariat@oecd.org is most welcome.

Just published !

Human Resource Management in States affected by Fragility and Conflict. This study has been produced by the INCAF Secretariat in response to a request made by the INCAF Task Team on

Implementation and Reform during its meetings of 25-26 March 2014. The purpose of this publication is to:

i) provide a shared understanding of human resource management issues to policy makers and practitioners involved in states affected by fragility and/or conflict

ii) outline a set of common challenges faced by INCAF members in relation to human resource management in fragile and conflict-affected situations, and

iii) serve as a peer-learning tool by sharing ideas and experiences on innovative practices and reforms.

This paper is the second in the series of a Development Policy Papers in which we are planning to publish more publications in 2016.

Our colleagues in the anti-corruption task team network would like to share this paper on human smuggling produced jointly with the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs as well as the Public Governance Directorate. It builds on the forthcoming report “Illicit Financial Flows: The economy of illicit trade in West Africa”, which is part of our work on “Global Bads” and is to be launched in the Spring 2016.