As the civil war in Yemen entered its fourth year, the humanitarian crisis in the country only worsened in 2017 with soaring levels of hunger and malnutrition, an unprecedented spread of cholera, and a widespread campaign of airstrikes on civilian communities. This led to Yemen scoring as the third-most worsened country in the 2018 Fragile States Index (FSI), and continued a long-term worsening trend that has seen Yemen rank as the fourth-most worsened country in the world over the past decade of the FSI, along with Libya, Syria, and Mali. The country has now worsened to become the third-most fragile state in the world.
Category Archives: McKenzie Horwitz
Fragile States Index 2018 – Annual Report
- Tuesday, 24 April 2018 02:34
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 a state towards the brink of failure. By highlighting pertinent issues in weak and failing states, The Fragile States Index—and the social science framework and software application upon which it is built—makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large.
Resilience Drives a Remarkable Bounce Back for Mexico
- Monday, 23 April 2018 20:27
In the previous edition of the Fragile States Index (FSI), Mexico was the most worsened country — a decline in Mexico’s economy, the deteriorating status of refugees, and prevalent political corruption had pushed the country to the 88th position on the FSI in 2017, its worst ranking in over a decade. Indeed, Fund for Peace covered Mexico’s rapid decline in an article entitled, “So Far from God, So Close to the United States: Mexico Most-Worsened in 2017.”
However, in a surprising twist, in 2018 Mexico has recovered to become FSI’s sixth-most improved country overall, showing moderate improvements across nearly every indicator. This dramatic shift is largely attributable to the country’s resilience in the face of worsening U.S.-Mexican relations and the benefits reaped from overall improvements in its southern neighbors in Central America. In the face of very low expectations for its success in 2017, Mexico demonstrated continued economic strength and resilience.