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Key Text Improving the Provision of Basic Services for the Poor in Fragile Environments: International Literature Review Synthesis Paper

Author: S Pavanello, J Darcy
Date: 2008
Size: 32 pages (361 KB)

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Summary

What has been the international community’s experience with pro-poor service provision in fragile states? This report from ODI examines the existing literature and synthesises information from three new sectoral reports to create a comprehensive picture of donor engagement in service provision in fragile contexts. It concludes that while service provision in these environments is an increasingly prominent feature of donor interventions, significant challenges remain in balancing short-term and long-term objectives, and tailoring engagement to the particular circumstances of each context.

Over the past five years, the international community has become increasingly concerned with fragile states and the development challenges they pose. Of specific interest is improving the quality of pro-poor service delivery in these complex and volatile environments. Indeed, the relationship between the two is seen to be mutually reinforcing: state fragility negatively affects service delivery, and successful pro-poor service delivery interventions have the potential to address root causes of state fragility. Services in fragile state environments often face financial shortfalls, and breakdowns in governance lead to widespread exclusion of the society’s most vulnerable groups. Addressing these failures in service delivery, however, can provide the catalyst for building popular legitimacy in fragile states, restoring confidence in institutions, and initiating a virtuous circle of improved state-society relations.

Yet, while interest has grown in engaging on these issues, the dual objectives of improving service delivery while also building the capacity and legitimacy of the state have produced unique challenges for the international community. Analysis of the literature and experience of donor engagement in fragile states points to a number of findings:

Pro-poor service delivery in fragile states is highly complex and requires long-term vision and commitment; ‘one size fits all’ strategies are to be avoided in favour of interventions based on context-specific political analyses.
Service delivery in this context involves conflicting policy objectives, difficult choices, trade-offs between balancing short-term needs with long-term strategic goals.
Service delivery is ultimately the responsibility of the state, and, as such, mechanisms through which public actors reclaim their role in providing basic services must be built into donor programmes from the outset.
The existing dichotomy between relief projects and development projects should be removed, with each working toward balancing short-term and long-term objectives.
Donors must improve harmonisation and alignment efforts to prevent the creation of parallel structures within states and to use resources more effectively.
Funding mechanisms should be more flexible, predictable, and of greater duration to ensure that fragile states can access necessary resources at critical phases in their development.

The literature suggests that progress is being made in addressing some of the challenges in improving services in fragile states, but there are areas in which donors could and should be making greater efforts. Donor efforts should be directed at reaching the poorest and most vulnerable groups in society thereby mitigating a principal source of state fragility:

Gender issues, particularly around health and education, are largely underexplored.
There has been little systematic analysis on what kinds of instruments, approaches and strategies are effective in specific types of state fragility.

See also: summaries of the sectoral reports on education and water supply, sanitation and hygiene.

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Source: Pavanello, S., and Darcy, J., 2008, 'Improving the Provision of Basic Services for the Poor in Fragile Environments: International Literature Review Synthesis Paper', Report prepared for AusAID by the Overseas Development Institute, London
Author: Sara Pavanello , s.pavanello[at]odi.org.uk
Organisation: Overseas Development Institute (ODI), http://www.odi.org.uk/