Although the phenomenon of state failure is not new, it has become much more relevant and worrying than ever before. In less interconnected eras, state weakness could be isolated and kept distant. Failure had fewer implications for peace and security. Now, within a more interconnected global community these fragile states pose dangers not only to themselves and their neighbors but also to peoples around the globe. Preventing states from failing, and resuscitating those that do fail, are thus strategic and global imperatives. CIC has provided research in this arena, developed panel dicussions that have explored critical issues confronting failed states. CIC has also drawn on expertise from the practitioner, NGO, academic and UN communities, provided candid recommendations and potential solutions to the global threat that failed states present.
Program(s): Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project, Congo Research Group, Prevention and Peacebuilding
Region/Country: Central Asia, East Asia, Horn of Africa, Libya, Syria, South Asia, India, West Africa
COVID-19 has a postcode: How urban housing and spatial inequality are shaping the COVID-19 crisis
COVID-19 has underlined that spatial inequality is relevant—and costly—everywhere: not only in developing countries. The pandemic has exposed sharp inequalities in prosperous cities, such as New York and San Francisco, as well as in slums and informal settlements in developing countries such as Kenya and Iran. This paper presents the results of a rapid appraisal carried out in May 2020. It surveys how existing urban inequalities have played out in practice, how spatial inequality has shaped the repercussions of COVID-19, and how housing-related program and community responses have helped close—or exacerbated—these gaps. It also outlines the opportunities and prospects for longer term reforms.
Publication Date: Dec 11, 2020
Author(s) / Contributor(s): Jeni Klugman, Matthew Moore
Topic(s): Crises, Fragile States
Data for Peacebuilding and Prevention Ecosystem Mapping: The State of Play and the Path to Creating a Community of Practice
How can cutting-edge approaches to data—like advanced data science methods, quantitative methods, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP)—help inform peacebuilding and conflict prevention? This report from CIC's new Data for Peacebuilding and Prevention initiative maps and analyzes the existing global ecosystem in the field and lays out recommendations to grow the field effectively.
Author(s) / Contributor(s): Branka Panic
Topic(s): Crises, Fragile States, Peace Operations, United Nations
A Stocktaking of the UN-IFI Relationship on Prevention and Peacebuilding, 2018 to 2020
In 2018, the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank published a groundbreaking report driven by the conviction that the international community's attention must urgently be rebalanced from crisis response to prevention, leading to deepening collaboration between the UN and international financial institutions. This briefing by Paige Arthur provides an external perspective on the evolution of the UN-IFI relationship on prevention and peacebuilding over the past three years.
Author(s) / Contributor(s): Paige Arthur
Topic(s): Crises, Fragile States, United Nations
Program(s): Multilateral Reform, Prevention and Peacebuilding
Ensuring Stable and Peaceful Societies: Memo to H.E. John W. Ashe, President of the General Assembly
Peacekeeping in Africa : The evolving security architecture
Why Would Peace Be Controversial at the United Nations? Negotiations Toward a Post-2015 Development Framework
The Mess Obama Left Behind in Iraq
The Roots of America's Mideast Delusion
The U.S. Owes Afghans Economic Support and Resettlement
Rwanda should have been a wake-up call. Why do the crises continue?
COVID-19, Peace, Conflict, and Violence: "Big" Insights from Big Data
The November Data for Peace Dialogue was dedicated to the connections between COVID-19, peace, and security. The pandemic has postponed elections, delayed implementation of peace agreements, and obstructed mediation efforts. In this session, we heard from panelists whose organizations are leveraging the power of data to track correlations and insights on the relationship between COVID-19 and conflict, informing future responses to pandemic challenges and helping highlight ways to sustain peace.