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Fragility And Mdg Progress: How Useful Is The Fragility Concept?

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  • Kenneth Harttgen and Stephan Klasen

Abstract

While progress in developing countries as a whole, in terms of growth, poverty reduc-tion, and several MDGs, has been quite good in recent years, fragile states lag behind in levels of MDG achievement. To understand the link between fragility and MDG progress, and also to identify the most effective policy interventions to achieve the MDGs, it is es-sential that fragile states are appropriately defined and classified. While the amount of literature on how to engage with fragile states is rapidly accumulating, only very limited analysis exists that investigates to what extent the levels and trends in the MDGs differ significantly between different definitions of fragile and non-fragile states. 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. In terms of MDG pro-gress, 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.

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  • Kenneth Harttgen and Stephan Klasen, 2010. "Fragility And Mdg Progress: How Useful Is The Fragility Concept?," RSCAS Working Papers 2010/20, European University Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2010/20
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Simon Feeny & Mark McGillivray, 2009. "Aid allocation to fragile states: Absorptive capacity constraints," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(5), pages 618-632.
    2. World Bank, 2007. "Global Monitoring Report 2007 : Millennium Development Goals, Confronting the Challenges of Gender Equality and Fragile States," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6637, December.
    3. World Bank & International Monetary Fund, 2008. "Global Monitoring Report 2008 : MDGs and the Environment, Agenda for Inclusive and Sustainable Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6518, December.
    4. Easterly, William, 2009. "How the Millennium Development Goals are Unfair to Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 26-35, January.
    5. World Bank, 2007. "World Development Indicators 2007," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8150, December.
    6. World Bank & International Monetary Fund, 2009. "Global Monitoring Report 2009 : A Development Emergency," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2625, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Boris Branisa & Carolina Cardona, 2015. "Social Institutions and Gender Inequality in Fragile States: Are They Relevant for the Post-MDG Debate?," Southern Voice Occasional Paper 21, Southern Voice.
    2. Franklin Allen and Giorgia Giovannetti, 2010. "Fragile Countries And The 2008-2009 Crisis," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 13, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    3. Sumner, Andy, 2012. "Where Do The Poor Live?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 865-877.
    4. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Remy Bolito-Losembe, 2014. "Corruption et Etats fragiles africains," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 26(1), pages 50-58.
    5. Go, Delfin S. & Quijada, Jose Alejandro, 2011. "Assessing the odds of achieving the MDGs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5825, The World Bank.
    6. Andy Sumner, 2010. "Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: What if Three-quarters of the World’s Poor Live in Middle-income Countries?," Working Papers 74, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    7. Andy Sumner, 2013. "Global Poverty, Aid, and Middle-Income Countries: Are the Country Classifications Moribund or is Global Poverty in the Process of 'Nationalizing'?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-062, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Sumner, Andy, 2013. "Global Poverty, Aid, and Middle-Income Countries: Are the Country Classifications Moribund or is Global Poverty in the Process of 'Nationalizing'?," WIDER Working Paper Series 062, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Sergio Tezanos Vázquez & Andy Sumner, 2016. "Is the ‘Developing World’ Changing? A Dynamic and Multidimensional Taxonomy of Developing Countries," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 28(5), pages 847-874, November.
    10. Go, Delfin S. & Quijada, José Alejandro, 2012. "The Odds of Achieving the MDGs," Conference papers 332179, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fragile States; Millennium Development Goals; Heterogeneity.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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