Functioning states are essential for reducing poverty, sustaining peace and achieving agreed development goals. Despite receiving growing international attention in recent years, fragile states are falling behind other low-income countries in human development. Fragility – and its negative consequences – can destabilise entire regions and have global repercussions. Tackling the challenges associated with fragility requires a concerted international effort to support sustainable statebuilding processes, based on robust state-society relations.

Supporting Statebuilding in Situations of Conflict and Fragility: Policy Guidance presents new thinking on statebuilding and clear recommendations for better practice. It provides an internationally accepted conceptual framework for statebuilding, informed by today’s realities of conflict-affected and fragile situations. Building on good practices already being successfully applied on the ground, this guidance lays out how developing and developed countries can better facilitate positive statebuilding processes and strengthen the foundations upon which capable and legitimate states are built. The recommendations in this guidance address critical areas for better international engagement from strategy development and programme design and delivery to day-to-day operations in the field and at headquarters.