Starting Monday, March 7, the Fragility Forum 2022: Development and peace in uncertain times is taking place against a backdrop of heightened challenges around the world, from climate change to the dramatic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, to armed conflict and humanitarian crises — a stark reminder of how complex crises and interconnected risks amplify challenges in fragile, conflict-affected, and vulnerable, or FCV, contexts.
This year’s forum will take stock of the emerging sources of insecurity and look at the evolution — and potential transformation — of some of the essential elements of our collective response, including jobs and economic growth, security, and governance.
I feel energized about the innovations, solutions, and ideas to be shared this year by partners from the development, humanitarian, peacebuilding, and security sectors working in the most fragile settings, and look forward to reflecting on the following several key issues at the forum.
1. Evolution of our understanding of and engagement with FCV settings
This forum takes place a decade after the publication of the seminal “World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development,” which set a clear agenda for large-scale social change and institution-building through development interventions in FCV settings.
While the WDR 2011 sparked many important discussions — including around the key priorities it put forward of security, justice, and jobs — progress on FCV settings since the report’s release has been mixed. Ten years later, the complexity and multidimensionality of challenges we face today are urging the international community to take stock of development efforts.
The forum will also explore whether the WDR 2011’s key priorities are still valid, whether we should be doing more — or different — things today, and, most importantly, how we can collectively be more effective in addressing FCV challenges over the next decade.
2. How shocks and stresses compound risks
We are living in a world where shocks to stability and development have proliferated and combined in complex ways, compounding pre-existing causes of fragility in many countries and regions — for example, conflict and climate change. How can we better understand the interactions between different types of shocks and risks?
Fragility Forum 2022
The Fragility Forum is a biennial event that brings together policymakers and practitioners to exchange innovative ideas and knowledge to improve development approaches in FCV settings to foster peace and stability. For more information and to register, click here.
The forum will feature sessions exploring and shedding new light on how climate change, food crises, natural disasters, pandemics, economic crises, forced displacement, and other factors combine to exacerbate root causes of fragility, conflict, and violence. It will also focus on solutions: from approaches to strengthening crisis preparedness and resilience in FCV contexts, to how development assistance can enable sustainable recovery and invest to consolidate and protect future development gains.
Sessions will feature Adelphi, the Geneva Water Hub, Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, Royal Tropical Institute, UN Refugee Agency, UNICEF, the Water Peace and Security Initiative, and World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, among others.
3. Jobs and economic transformation
Jobs and economic transformation are as critical and urgent as ever, particularly in FCV settings. The World Bank Group’s FCV strategy for 2020-2025 emphasized that a vibrant and inclusive private sector can ignite economic growth and provide jobs and services, and, in this way, help stabilize societies.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, urgent action will be needed to spur economic recovery, incentivize the expansion of private investment, generate jobs, and secure livelihoods. This will include support for sound macro-financial stability and governance; a conducive business enabling environment; open access to quality infrastructure and financial services; investments in agriculture and food security; and greater access to and use of new technologies — all essential to help the most fragile settings build back.
For more on this topic, look out for sessions led by the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Finance Corporation, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization.
4. A human-centric approach to security
The FCV strategy for 2020-2025 has identified security and justice as two of the six high-priority issues of engagement for the World Bank in fragile settings. The understanding of security itself has broadened considerably since the United Nations’ “Human Development Report 1994” and its coverage of human security. The WDR 2011 also recognized the centrality of security issues in contributing to conflict, as well as the critical role security plays in setting foundations for development.
Forum sessions will feature discussions on urban violence prevention, stabilization, the next generation of human security, and national ownership in developing security and justice institutions with partners such as the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, g7+ Secretariat, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, Peace in Our Cities Network, Strong Cities Network, and the U.N. Development Programme.
5. State and institution building
The forum will highlight discussions that invite a deep and honest look at the realities and challenges of state and institution building. Going beyond technocratic discussions, we will also explore thorny issues such as the political economy, root causes of fragility, weak social contracts, and fragile underlying political settlements that can undermine state and institution building in FCV contexts.
As demonstrated in the 2017 WDR on governance and the law, institutions matter for sustaining peace and stability, building trust, and strengthening the social contract. Governance institutions that balance, divide, and share power play a crucial role in addressing grievances and reducing incentives to engage in violence. Effective, responsive, and accountable institutions — capable of delivering inclusive public services to those furthest behind — are at the heart of the recovery.
For more on this topic, look out for sessions led by partners including the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, Club de Madrid, Counterpart International, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Institute for State Effectiveness, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and United States Institute of Peace.
6. Partnerships and learning
Finally, at the heart of the forum are the two concepts of partnerships and learning. Unless we work together across the international community, progress will prove elusive.
With the presence of World Bank Group senior management and partners from the U.N., the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, bilateral donors, and multilateral development banks, we can signal our collective commitment of using the unique platform of the forum, which is open to all, for a deep and honest reflection on how to better partner to ensure development and peace in difficult environments and to build on what we have collectively learned in the past decade to more effectively address FCV challenges going forward.
About the author
Soukeyna Kane
Soukeyna Kane is the director of the fragility, conflict, and violence group at the World Bank. She was previously the country director for Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad from 2017 to 2021 and governance practice manager in Europe and Central Asia for 5 years. Kane, a Senegalese national, joined the bank in March 2003 as a senior financial management specialist and has held several positions in the Africa region, operations policy and country services, Middle East and North Africa, and Europe and Central Asia. Before joining the World Bank, she was the principal internal auditor at the African Development Bank.
