Executive summary and key findings
International development agencies are focusing increasingly on fragile and conflict-affected states and the challenges they are facing in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Recognizing that fragile states are ‘different’ from more stable and less vulnerable (though not necessarily poorer) developing countries, donors are nowadays paying more attention than before to specific problems of governance, service delivery, the development of core state functions, and – more recently – conflict resolution, peace-building and violence mitigation in fragile and conflict-affected settings. However, despite the fact that many fragile states have large rural populations and (subsistence) agriculture and associated, non-farm economic activities constitute significant sectors of their economies, the relationship between state fragility and rural development remains underexplored.
Using Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Yemen, Nepal and Bolivia as country cases, the evidence presented in this study suggests that there are some particular and big challenges for rural development in fragile states. State fragility – disaggregated along the dimensions of state authority, legitimacy and capacity – affects levels of rural poverty, public service delivery and violence against women in a number of ways, making the achievement of rural development on the whole more difficult. The lack or limitations of development in rural areas in fragile countries, in turn, enhances the fragility of the state overall, creating a kind of vicious circle of fragility that is difficult to break.
The study operationalizes the concept of state fragility as follows: “States are fragile when they suffer major authority and/or legitimacy and capacity deficits, diminishing their ability to provide the basic functions needed for poverty reduction and development and to safeguard the security and human rights of their populations [in urban and rural areas]”. The selected countries represent a spectrum of variation, with Afghanistan, DRC and Yemen belonging to the group of most fragile countries in the world in the study period (2007-2012) while Nepal and Bolivia are considered to be less fragile (in this order). Building on the concept of ‘integrated rural development system’, which acknowledges a shift from the government led idea of integrated rural development to a more governance inspired definition which involves active local citizen participation in both public and private sectors, the study adopts a thematic focus on rural poverty and service delivery and violence against women in rural areas in the five study countries.
Key findings:
Extensive rural poverty is both related to (a) significant deficits in state authority, legitimacy and capacity, particularly in settings with violent conflict (and associated external interventions); and (b) persisting high levels of social inequality and ethnic cleavages in states where authority and capacity deficits are less pronounced.
Social inequalities between rural and urban areas are related to authority and capacity deficits, including the absence of strong, consistent and legitimate political leadership, and an historical urban elite bias.
The provision of social welfare safety nets by non-state, traditional and customary organizations, including with respect to basic food security in rural areas, is related to state authority and capacity deficits, and deepens existing legitimacy deficits.
Particularly in fragile settings affected by violent conflict, deficits in state authority result in increased pauperization of rural populations due to the disruption of rural livelihoods and wage-labour migration.