Category Archives: Fragile States Index Analysis

In the Wake of Al-Bashir, Women of Sudan Bring a Glimmer of Hope

BY PATRICIA TAFT AND WENDY WILSON In April 2019, a photograph of a woman dressed in white, standing atop a car and rallying a large group of protestors went viral. The woman, a student named Alaa Salah, had had enough. And by the size and passion of those chanting with her, so had many others. […]

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Fifteen Years On, Cote d’Ivoire Comes Back from the Brink

BY MARCEL MAGLO AND FIONA GRATHWOHL In the very first Failed States Index (FSI) in 2005, Côte d’Ivoire was ranked as the world’s most fragile state. Sixteen years later, the country once ravaged by two civil conflicts bears little resemblance to its past when it was torn along political and ethnic lines as Laurent Gbagbo […]

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Iraq’s Improving Trajectory

BY NATE HAKEN AND SARAH COCKEY Access to safe water has always been a fundamental driver of conflict around the world. The worst drought in hundreds of years preceded the Syria crisis in 2011 and fueled unrest in Yemen. Changing rain patterns and desertification have brought farmers and herders into lethal violence, killing over ten […]

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Fragile States Index 2020 – Annual Report

BY J.J. MESSNER DE LATOUR, NATE HAKEN, PATRICIA TAFT, MARCEL MAGLO, NATALIE FIERTZ, WENDY WILSON, SARAH COCKEY, FIONA GRATHWOHL, KEENAN IULIANO   The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing […]

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Fragile States Index 2019 Released: Venezuela and Brazil Most-Worsened Countries in 2019

FOR RELEASE APRIL 10, 2019 Media Contact: Charles Fiertz, [email protected] www.fragilestatesindex.org Yemen Most Fragile State in 2019 Yemen has claimed the top position in Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index (FSI) for the first time as a result of its civil war and humanitarian catastrophe. Yemen’s top ranking is the result of its rapid worsening […]

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Fragile States Index 2019 – Annual Report

BY J.J. MESSNER, NATE HAKEN, PATRICIA TAFT, IGNATIUS ONYEKWERE, HANNAH BLYTH, MARCEL MAGLO, DANIET MOGES, NATALIE FIERTZ, CHRISTINA MURPHY, WENDY WILSON, KEVIN OBIKE   The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures […]

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Always Look on the Bright Side

BY J.J. MESSNER According to the famed philosopher, Eric Idle, one should always look on the bright side of life. “If life seems jolly rotten,” Mr. Idle would have us know, “There’s something you’ve forgotten.”1 From the perspective of the Fragile States Index (FSI), when the constant stream of the 24-hour news cycle peddles continual […]

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The Sad Song of Venezuela

BY NATALIE FIERTZ When the famed Chilean author, Isabel Allende, had to leave her native country in the wake of the military coup against leftist president Salvador Allende in 1973, she and her family fled to the safety and stability of Venezuela, then a beacon among the tumult of Latin America. In a recent interview, […]

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Brazil’s Slide Continues and Takes a Lurch to the Right

BY NATALIE FIERTZ As Brazil continues its 5-year slide of worsening on the Fragile States Index (FSI), this year marks the country’s sharpest year-on-year decline yet, seeing it tie for most-worsened country. Dashing tentative hopes for reversal and recovery that had emerged at the end of 2017, 2018 saw the collapse of the first shoots […]

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Yemen Takes Top Position as Most Fragile State

BY CHRISTINA MURPHY As much as we try to focus on the performance of individual countries on their own terms, there is an unavoidable curiosity and interest attached to the rankings of the Fragile States Index (FSI), and specifically to the country that ranks “top.” In the history of the FSI, only three countries had […]

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