Watch in:

Fragility Forum 2022: Development and Peace in Uncertain Times – Opening Plenary

Follow the event on Twitter #FragilityForum2022

Fragility, conflict, violence are threats to ending poverty. How can we overcome this development challenge of our time? The Fragility Forum is a biennial event that brings together policymakers and practitioners from the humanitarian, development, peace and security communities. We are excited to gather virtually, engage with partners from around the world and exchange innovative ideas and knowledge to improve development approaches in fragile, conflict and violence-affected (FCV) settings to foster peace and stability.

The global response to FCV is constantly evolving to adapt to the ongoing changes in the international context. As complexity and uncertainty become the new normal, the Fragility Forum 2022 will explore how the international community can best support countries affected by FCV in a dramatically changing global landscape. It will revisit some of the key findings of the 2011 World Development Report: Conflict, Security and Development, look into the evolution of the global response to FCV since then, and consider how to adapt it to new, dynamic contexts.

00:00 Welcome and opening remarks by David Malpass, WBG President
10:09 Remarks by Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, Vice President of Sierra Leone
29:06 Panel discussion: Development and Peace in Uncertain Times
59:11 Closing remarks

Speakers

David R. Malpass

Former President, World Bank Group

@DavidMalpassWBG
Kanni Wignaraja

Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific

@kanniwignaraja
Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh

Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone
Ousmane Mamoudou Kane

Minister, Economic Affairs & Promotion of Productive Sectors, Mauritania
Susanna Moorehead

Chair, OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
Peter Maurer

President, International Committee of the Red Cross

@PMaurerICRC

Moderator

Raj Kumar

President & Editor-in-Chief, Devex

@raj_devex

Read the transcript

00:01 [Raj Kumar] Well, hello and welcome to the Fragility Forum.
00:03 I'm Raj Kumar, President and Editor in Chief of Devex.
00:07 All of the topics we're here to talk about today are quite serious.
00:10 It is a real pleasure to get to be with all of you.
00:13 I welcome you if you are joining us on World Bank Live, on Facebook, on Twitter, on the
00:19 Hopin platform.
00:20 However you're joining this discussion, it's a great pleasure to be with you virtually.
00:23 I know there are many leaders and experts who are joining what has become an important
00:28 moment on the humanitarian and the development calendar.
00:32 And that's the Fragility Forum.
00:34 And it's an important moment because if you were to make a map of the world and look at
00:38 the most challenging places in the world when it comes to development and make another map
00:42 where we have some of the biggest challenges when it comes to fragility and conflict and
00:47 violence, you would find that those two overlay quite neatly.
00:51 We are at a 30-year high in violent conflict as Devex has recently reported.
00:56 It's an important moment for the world to take stock.
00:58 And so I'm very glad to be asked to be a part of this opening plenary today.
01:02 And I welcome, again, all of you who are here.
01:04 We will shortly be hearing from the Vice President of Sierra Leone, who is our keynote speaker.
01:10 That's Mr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh.
01:13 We will also then have a panel conversation.
01:16 But to begin, I'm honored to pass the floor to the president of the World Bank Group,
01:22 David Malpass, for his open thoughts.
01:25 David.
01:28 [David R. Malpass] Hello.
01:38 Very much a good morning and good day to everyone.
01:43 I want to thank you for having me open this year's Fragility Forum.
01:48 Welcome to everyone who is participating and thank you to the speakers, the panelists,
01:54 and the organizers.
01:55 The event this year takes place as a violent war is unfolding in Eastern Europe.
02:01 There are no words that I can express to convey the horror for the Ukrainian people.
02:11 At the World Bank Group, we're doing everything we can to assist Ukraine and the region.
02:17 These are seismic changes in Europe and likely in the world.
02:22 It's causing the largest refugee flow in Europe since World War II.
02:26 It will have a massive impact on energy, grain markets and food insecurity.
02:33 Each development has serious negative consequences in developing countries.
02:38 We're assessing the consequences and how the World Bank Group can respond both in Eastern
02:44 Europe and in fragile countries around the world.
02:49 Conflicts around the world are having far reaching social and economic impacts in Ethiopia,
02:55 Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan to name a few.
02:59 I'm hoping this Fragility Forum will confront challenges and provide new ideas on how the
03:05 international community can more effectively help people facing conflict and fragility.
03:10 The recent trends are disheartening and tragic.
03:14 Since we had the last forum two years ago, fragility, conflict-related fatalities and
03:20 social unrest have increased dramatically.
03:23 We estimate that 23 countries with a combined population of 850 million people currently
03:30 face high or medium intensity conflict.
03:34 The number of conflict countries has doubled over the past decade.
03:38 This has triggered massive refugee flows.
03:42 Beyond the tragic human cost, fragility, conflict, and violence threatens efforts to end poverty.
03:48 Over 300 million people in these settings experienced acute food insecurity in 2021.
03:54 Conflict, fragility, and violence cut across all income groups and the poor are the most
04:01 affected.
04:02 They add to the damage caused by COVID 19 and now by the Ukrainian war.
04:08 Our estimates show that hundreds of millions of families are suffering reversals in development
04:14 and most significant economic crisis in almost a century.
04:20 Indicators of poverty, growth, inequality, nutrition, education, and security are all
04:25 rapidly deteriorating rather than improving, as we would hope in a developing world.
04:32 In addition, rising inflation and interest rates are hitting the world's poorest the
04:38 hardest.
04:39 The global landscape is increasingly complex and includes long-standing and new challenges
04:45 to peace, development, and prosperity.
04:48 First, we're living in a world where protected armed conflict keeps increasing as we've seen
04:54 in the Middle East and Africa, where immensely destructive impacts are reversing decades
05:00 of progress in development.
05:02 Second, the pandemic has hit societies that are already in turmoil, food systems that
05:07 were already impacted by climate change, and populations already displaced by conflict.
05:14 Our estimates show that because of COVID 19, about 20 million more people in countries
05:20 affected by fragility, conflict, and violence are now living in extreme poverty.
05:26 Third, climate change is a threat multiplier.
05:29 It's placing major strain on economies and societies, particularly in fragile settings.
05:36 And while adaptation is key to minimizing the negative consequences of climate change,
05:42 countries affected by conflict and fragility face considerable challenges in mobilizing
05:48 funds.
05:49 And equally worrying are the new acute and destabilizing political crises, including
05:55 coup d'états as well as the unfreezing of old conflicts and the emergence of new interstate
06:02 wars.
06:04 Addressing the challenges of fragility, conflict, and violence requires the strengthened international
06:09 cooperation and deeper collaboration with governments, civil society, and the affected
06:14 populations themselves.
06:17 The delivery of weapons that inter-fragile and conflict-affected situations must be stopped.
06:24 And the overhang of firearms and landmines left from previous outbreaks of violence must
06:30 be reduced.
06:31 A reduction in tensions also requires stricter regulation of international security contractors.
06:39 Focused international agreements should bolster human and economic development in fragile
06:45 and conflict-affected situations, providing them with access to affordable medicines and
06:50 basic services.
06:52 The macroeconomic response to inflation must avoid taking the developing world into a new
06:58 phase of economic turbulence and workable mechanisms should be adopted to restructure
07:04 the debts of the poorest countries, increase the transparency of their turns, and reduce
07:11 the burden on people in those countries.
07:15 Over the last decade, the international community has been working across the humanitarian,
07:20 peace building, and development agendas, recognizing that sustainable peace is no longer a matter
07:26 of just ending wars.
07:29 Rather, it means addressing complex political, social, and economic drivers of conflict.
07:36 Collectively we've made progress, but it's not enough.
07:39 A key part of this is broadening our partnerships and collaboration at the country level.
07:45 We need to work hand in hand, not only with governments, but also with civil society,
07:50 the private sector, and directly with communities.
07:53 For example, the World Bank Group's support to Yemen has been implemented for years in
07:58 concert with longstanding partners at the United Nations and local organizations.
08:04 This is how we've been able to strengthen the country's health systems, restore electricity,
08:10 provide cash transfers, and support displaced populations.
08:14 The World Bank Group has been active in fragile settings from our very inception and the support
08:20 to countries affected by FCV has deepened over the last decade.
08:25 Most recently, over the last four years, we've nearly doubled our footprint in fragile locations,
08:31 reaching over 1,200 World Bank Group staff at present.
08:35 The World Bank has significantly increased its support to countries affected by fragility
08:40 and conflict from $3.9 billion in fiscal year 2016 to $15.8 billion in fiscal year '21,
08:51 a huge increase.
08:52 Our current FCV strategy provides a basis for differentiating our response at every
08:58 stage of fragility and conflict, helping prevent or mitigate risks in fragile environments,
09:06 ensuring that we remain engaged in active crises and conflicts, and working to ensure
09:12 sustainable recovery in post crisis transitions.
09:16 This strategy has given us the basis for a new generation of policies, analytical, and
09:22 operational tools.
09:24 This year's Fragility Forum provides all of us an opportunity to take stock of the current
09:30 state of fragility in the world and to identify priority issues going forward.
09:36 I hope that the discussions during the forum will help deepen our understanding of challenges
09:43 related to fragility and set the concrete actions and priorities for the international
09:49 community, for governments and for people working to reverse the alarming trend we're
09:56 seeing now.
09:57 I want to thank you all and wish you a very good discussion today.
10:01 Thanks.
10:02 [Raj Kumar] Thank you so much, David.
10:05 Thank you to the World Bank Group again for this Fragility Forum and I'm honored to bring
10:09 to the virtual stage our next speaker, Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, who is the Vice President
10:15 of the Republic of Sierra Leone and has had a whole career working on these issues beginning
10:19 in Kosovo and Mali, working across the Sahel and at the International Crisis Group as well.
10:26 So I'm very eager to hear from you Vice President Jalloh.
10:30 Please, the floor is yours.
10:35 [Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh] Thank you very much.
10:37 Good afternoon from West Africa, city of the car, first of all, I want to take this opportunity
10:43 to thank the World Bank for inviting me to this Fragility Forum to foster exchange of
10:48 ideas and issues of fragility, conflicts, and violence.
10:52 I agree with the World Bank president that it is an opportunity to stock of…
11:00 Also more importantly, it's an opportunity to rethink new modes of intervention, to help
11:06 countries move out of fragility.
11:10 Sierra Leone, like you all know, has a very long history of fragile context imagined from
11:18 this brutal civil conflict to Ebola are now coping with the damaging realities of COVID
11:24 In the 1990s, just a brief history, it was evident that the Sierra Leonean state collapsed
11:29 under the weight of bad governance resulting in conflict.
11:33 The indicators then pointed to poor social economic and governance landscape, deteriorating
11:40 human and physical security, weak service delivery leading to weakening of a national
11:47 cohesion.
11:48 Over the years, reversing fragility in Sierra Leone entails rebuilding a cohesive society
11:53 and nation, enhance good governance with a specific focus on strengthening the rule of
12:02 law, build credible and accountable state institutions, more importantly, strengthen
12:07 service delivered.
12:08 Successive government since the end of the war have been building on these gains.
12:12 We have seen in Sierra Leone over the years successful, peaceful, transparent elections,
12:18 steady socioeconomic growth.
12:19 But when we assumed office in 2018, we continued to witness recurring as well as new drivers
12:27 of fragility in Sierra Leone.
12:29 We are now for the first time experiencing the risk associated with weak service delivery
12:35 systems.
12:36 How the failure of delivery essential services such as education, health, security is impacting
12:43 on the population, particularly the rural poor.
12:47 We have seen how crops reduction in support of budgetary allocation for the security and
12:54 defense forces is impacting their capacity to protect, provide security and defend the
13:00 state.
13:01 We are also seeing the stark realities of a demographic shift with a young and ambitious
13:07 youthful population that are less kids, disturbing political and economic issues such as the
13:14 burden of managing debts, inflation and the contraction of the civic space, climate as
13:20 well as pandemics including COVID-19.
13:24 COVID-19 is both a health and a socioeconomic hazard for us.
13:33 Although with relatively very few cases, around 7,665 and 125 dead, the socioeconomic impact
13:38 continue to be very, very huge.
13:42 How has Sierra Leone coped and fared on with the sources of fragility challenges?
13:49 We as a country, we elaborated a medium national development plan that focus on addressing
13:56 service delivery.
13:57 Under the leadership of his Excellency Julius Maada Bio, we carved that plan on the focus
14:05 to support human capital development with a strategic focus on improving human capital
14:11 outcomes.
14:12 Today as a country, we are spending 22% of the budget on education.
14:19 We have free quality education for kids in the basic education, primary and secondary.
14:26 Today, as a result of that free education, we have enabled parents, poor parents, to
14:31 have additional money so that they can spend on livelihood.
14:39 Today, the indicators are showing that we have added 7% of the Sierra Leonean population
14:46 to schooling.
14:47 Today, we are building more classrooms, we are keeping more girls in school.
14:50 Equally, on the health sector, we have increased the budget when we came in.
14:54 It was 6%.
14:56 Today, we have increased the budget to 11.6%.
15:00 Although we have a few percentages short of their budget declaration, but we intend to
15:04 increase that by 2023 to 15%.
15:08 In the health sector, we are bold enough to recruit 5,000 health workers to focus essentially
15:15 on primary healthcare.
15:16 The indicators are showing that today maternal and infant mortality are going down, although
15:24 the ratio of healthcare workers to the population is still very high.
15:29 In the energy access, when we came in, it was 16% energy access.
15:33 We have improved that.
15:35 Today, we are very close to 40%.
15:37 We are working very hard to make the transition from utility energy to productive energy so
15:42 that we can support and enable an environment that can attract investment.
15:48 With regards to the security and defense forces, we have improved the conditions of service
15:56 and enhanced the operational capability of the defense.
16:00 But that is still a huge challenge, not only in Sierra Leone, but in most Sub-Saharan African
16:06 countries.
16:07 I normally tell people that professionalism of security and defense forces comes with
16:12 a price.
16:13 It includes a huge investment, but I only realized that how huge it is when we assume
16:19 office as Vice President.
16:20 As somebody working the International Crisis Group in West Africa and for the UN in most
16:25 fragile countries, I keep wondering at the time how these security and defense forces
16:31 are coping in a context of very reduced costs for them.
16:36 So professionalism is one key area.
16:38 So the most of the Sub-Saharan African countries.
16:41 I give you an example.
16:43 If you go to a country like Guinea or Burkina Faso or Mali, and you see military officers
16:49 that wear different uniforms, it's not because it is stylistic.
16:52 It's because in most of this country, officers are forced to buy uniforms even for themselves.
16:57 So you can imagine in the context where officers are buying uniforms for themselves, the operational
17:02 capability that will enable them to provide security for their people and for their country
17:08 is largely diminished.
17:11 We designed various program to create jobs for the youth's skills training.
17:18 I want to acknowledge the support of the World Bank in that direction recently with the portfolio
17:23 to support skills training for youth.
17:26 The youth crisis exacerbated by COVID 19 remains, no doubt, a slow motion conflict dynamic.
17:33 On the economic front, when we came in we made immense progress in microeconomic managements,
17:39 prudent, physical discipline, reduce inflation, and then increased revenue.
17:46 All these gains today are at a risk of gradually being reversed under the very weight of COVID
17:58 On the political front, under the leadership of his Excellency the President, we enacted
18:02 the Independent Media Commission Actin in 2020 to expunge libel law from our books to
18:10 enhance free speech in the country.
18:13 We established the Independent Commission for Peace and National Cohesion to force the
18:19 national unity and social cohesion.
18:21 As a result of the conflict and violence, we saw after the 2018 elections, we established
18:28 to enhance discussions that creates dialogue.
18:32 We established the Government Civil Society Dialogue as a framework to foster dialogue
18:37 with civil society.
18:38 But this is still not enough to halt the progressive contraction of the civic space.
18:44 Civil society today, we have seen the gradual reduction in supporting governance portfolios
18:50 in most of this country.
18:51 But you take countries like Burkina Faso, countries that have worked on, like Liberia,
18:57 countries like Mali…
18:58 In the last 15 years, we have a very brilliant civil society, civil society activists.
19:03 Today, I was surprised to learn by the last two, three years, majority of these guys have
19:11 found themselves in government because there is a growing in the fortunes in civil society,
19:17 enterprises growing that governance portfolio to support civil society development in Sub-Saharan
19:22 Africa is gradually diminishing.
19:24 As a result, vibrant outfits are closing down and that is resulting in the contraction of
19:30 the civic space.
19:32 In Sierra Leone, we still have challenges, how to support a vibrant and viable civil
19:37 society, and we believe that this framework to enhance dialogue between them and government
19:42 is still not in enough.
19:44 We are also trying best to overcome ethno-regional politicization in Sierra Leone.
19:50 That is still a challenge because in Sierra Leone, the two major political parties are
19:54 very strong, ethno-regional stronghold.
19:55 How we are trying to expand this space so that political parties can become national,
20:02 can become holistic, can be able to gather support from the parts of the country is also
20:07 a big challenge.
20:09 When it comes to COVID, I've already highlighted immense, the immediate and slow motion impact
20:15 of COVID.
20:16 At the start, we designed a comprehensive strategy to respond to COVID along essentially
20:22 three lines: the health, the social, and the economic.
20:26 We designed our response looking into the future.
20:30 For us, COVID-19 provided an opportunity to assess the future of healthcare delivery in
20:36 Sierra Leone.
20:37 As such, we tied our intervention to long term investment in healthcare, building a
20:42 bridge between the current response and building a resilient healthcare infrastructure, because
20:49 we realized that even after Ebola, the healthcare delivery system collapsed.
20:53 So whatever investment we make today in this response against COVID is seen as an investment
20:59 to strengthening healthcare sector, particularly the healthcare infrastructure to be able to
21:03 deliver primary healthcare.
21:05 COVID-19 dealt a heavy blow on the healthcare system, disrupting healthcare delivery.
21:13 As we focus more on the emergencies, moving our attention from delivering primary healthcare,
21:19 there's an immense social impact.
21:22 We see the loss of jobs, the hospitality industry for countries like Sierra Leone, and most
21:27 other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa including Senegal here collapsed.
21:31 We saw increased food prices, higher freight costs with increasing vulnerabilities such
21:37 as food insecurity.
21:38 Even before the outbreak of COVID, Sierra Leone was spending about $520 million to import
21:45 food of which $240 million alone was all right.
21:50 We are struggling to meet the foreign exchange demand for food importation.
21:55 The global food distribution chain was disrupted.
22:02 As a result, you have high freight costs today.
22:06 To import food in Sierra Leone today is a serious burden, not only for businessmen,
22:10 but that burden is also transferred to the local population.
22:15 We saw rising costs in food prices and essential commodities.
22:21 So what happens is that government is now forced to move to subsidization.
22:25 Today, if you want to characterize governance politics in Sierra Leone, it is what you call
22:31 the politics of subsidization.
22:34 Government is forced to subsidize food prices to reduce vulnerability and social tension.
22:39 This has no doubt created a shift for us that now there is a focus of shift from capital
22:45 spending, from spending in the productive sector, to subsidizing food.
22:53 We subsidize almost everything: fuel, rice, wheat, cement, drugs, everything.
22:57 As a result, it has eaten into our plan to…
23:02 And productive sector.
23:04 Therefore, resources meant for capacity to control inflation and manage the debt.
23:09 On food security, food insecurity worsened.
23:13 The World Food Programme undertook a survey in Sierra Leone in [inaudible] in early mid
23:17 and mid-2020, capturing the conditions immediately before COVID and during COVID, and find out
23:25 that one million additional people in Sierra Leone became food insecure during the first
23:28 half of 2020.
23:30 Some of the emerging coping mechanisms included the sale of productive assets, the pre-sale
23:37 of productive assets such as land and machinery to buy food.
23:41 In 2021 in Sierra Leone, rural food poverty was about 60%.
23:44 And over 80% of rural inhabitants resorted to the same coping mechanism.
23:47 Imagine a country like Sierra Leone that has access to a port.
23:53 What will you say about landlocked countries who have to pay, countries like Mali, like
23:59 Burkina Faso, like Niger, like Chad, who have to pay additional transportation costs to
24:03 reach out to regions?
24:08 When you look at what is happening in countries like Mali, where you have from Timbuktu to
24:14 Bamako alone is 1,000 kilometers.
24:16 From Bamako to Gao alone is 1,003 kilometers with four road networks.
24:22 Food prices in those regions becomes so high that those countries outside of Bamako had
24:29 to depend on neighboring countries.
24:31 It’s what you call, classically in French, déterritorialisation.
24:33 That is you create a situation where in the capacity, the capability of the state is reduced
24:42 to an extent that it does no longer control and support its region.
24:47 The regions depend on neighboring countries, so the region has to fend for themselves,
24:52 and then gradually weaken central government capacity to exact control on those regions,
24:57 which explains the cycle of conflict in the Sahel.
25:01 It has also reinforced vulnerability, thus reducing the capability of this [inaudible].
25:07 These are fatal grounds for conflict and cycles of violence.
25:10 We have seen a further expansion and deepening of fragility landscape during the COVID-19
25:15 pandemic with coups and counter coups in West Africa.
25:21 Three of the countries that have benefited the most from financing development aid instruments
25:28 designed to address fragility have been taken over by coups.
25:32 Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and now we have Guinea added to that.
25:37 When you closely analyze the political dynamics in this country, it is evident that three
25:41 of these countries are in the Sahel, and they share the same political and social dynamics,
25:48 such as constrained civic spaces and the inability for them to be able to reach out, to extend
25:55 governance to their regions.
25:57 Responses to constitutional changes of government in West Africa has not healed the desired
26:03 dividend.
26:04 As of now, it is largely uncoordinated.
26:07 We need a common multicultural platform to reverse on constitutional changes of government.
26:12 There is a need for the international community to rethink essential regimes that target the
26:18 drivers of coups while at the same time take very tough stance against civilian regimes
26:22 that show utter disrespect for the rule of law and respect for human rights.
26:29 Mr. President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I now want to share with you some perspective
26:34 on the role of the international community to supporting countries to move out of fragility.
26:39 In the short term-
26:40 [Raj Kumar] Mr. Vice president, I hate to interrupt, but
26:43 I just want to mention that we are a little over time if you might, please, come to the
26:47 end of your mark soon.
26:48 Thank you.
26:49 [Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh] Thank you very much.
26:53 What I wanted to say, it's clearly evident that fragility is deepening.
26:58 Development calls for a strong and coordinated international effort.
27:01 I just want to share two point with you.
27:04 Folks, these are uncertain times.
27:08 These uncertain times call for extraordinary leadership.
27:14 The transition we have to support countries in West Africa to transition from redistributive
27:23 to productive capacity.
27:24 This should be supported by investment in infrastructure such as energy technology and
27:28 good drug network.
27:30 We have to support the governance space.
27:32 We have to provide support so that governance puts full use.
27:35 We have to also rethink the methodology and the tools of windows of fragility support
27:40 to make it more flexible.
27:42 There needs to be long term predictable and sustained investment coupled with smart domestic
27:48 and international policy that promotes wellbeing, not just an economic bottom line.
27:53 We too often prioritize strengthening the economic outcomes without addressing whether
27:59 those benefits affect equitably across our population.
28:03 Prioritizing education, health, access to clean energy and housing that support individuals
28:09 and families will elevate communities and poverty.
28:13 Equally, what we value and measure must reflect our priorities.
28:17 We must measure economic equality across our population, reduction of poverty, and progress
28:24 towards clean energy, environmental sustainability.
28:28 These uncertain times, Mr. President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, call for extraordinary
28:33 and bolder leadership from all of us, from elected officers to private sector and multicultural
28:40 institutions.
28:41 I want to encourage the international financial institutions to stay focused.
28:45 We know that there are crises, but interventions that support wellbeing and the promotion of
28:51 communities, community development, supporting international NGOs to continue to support
28:55 vulnerable populations, is critical.
28:58 On that note, I want to thank you very much.
29:01 [Raj Kumar] Thank you so much Vice President Jalloh for
29:05 excellent remarks and I think a great framing that leads us well into our panel conversation.
29:09 I ask our panelists to please come on screen if they can.
29:13 I'll just mention who you are and we'll begin our conversation and get into many of the
29:16 issues that we just heard from the Vice President and from David Malpass as well.
29:21 We have with us Minister Ousmane Mamadou Kane, who is the Minister of Economic Affairs and
29:27 Promotion of Productive Sectors in Mauritania.
29:29 We have Kanni Wignaraja, who is the Assistant Secretary General for Asia and Pacific at
29:34 UNDP.
29:35 We have Susanna Moorehead, who is the Chair of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee
29:40 or DAC.
29:41 And we have Peter Maurer, who's the President of the ICRC.
29:44 It's great to see all of you.
29:45 Thank you for being here at the launch of the Fragility Forum.
29:48 There was a lot that we heard from the first two sets of remarks.
29:51 I'll just ask each of you to quickly, in very brief form, because we are running short on
29:56 time, give us a sense and overview of what do we do.
29:59 I think you have your introductory remarks probably prepared, but the basic framing is
30:04 we're at this moment where fragility, conflict, and violence is getting worse, not better.
30:09 And countries like Sierra Leone face very dramatic challenges around things like rising
30:13 food prices.
30:14 What do we in the international community do?
30:17 Maybe I can begin with the Minister and we'll go around from there.
30:22 Minister Kane?
30:23 [Ousmane Mamoudou Kane] Yes.
30:26 Good afternoon.
30:27 Good afternoon Mr. Vice President of Sierra Leone.
30:30 Good afternoon or good morning, Mr. President of the World Bank, ladies and gentleman.
30:36 I thank all of you for giving the opportunity to a Mauritania official to share our views
30:44 on the fragility issue.
30:45 Sorry, I would like to speak in French, but I will try my English, my Mauritania English
30:51 with you.
30:54 Mauritania is in a very specific situation regarding fragility.
30:58 I will not mention this pandemic because the pandemic is something has been experienced
31:05 by all countries around the world.
31:08 But Mauritania is [inaudible] fragility because of two things: climate change first, which
31:14 is hitting us severely, and security and conflicts in the Sahara region.
31:23 The climate change is affecting us now, currently, because last year was a difficult year for
31:32 us.
31:33 There was almost no rain.
31:36 And people are suffering from that.
31:39 We know that there is this big initiative with lot of hope on it, this Great Green Wall
31:51 with the summit last year in Paris, January 14, 2021, with big pledges from various institutions,
32:02 including the World Bank, $14 billion.
32:05 But so far, we don't know how this will be spent.
32:09 As Minister in charge of economy, last October, I participated in ministerial meeting on the
32:17 follow up of these pledges made in Paris.
32:21 But with no clarity on how it'll be, this amount will be utilized; this amount will
32:28 be tapped on.
32:29 I think that one responsibility all of us have, and I'm calling on the international
32:33 community, is to clarify the way this amount, this $14 billion that was pledged in Paris,
32:42 could be channeled to the countries where there is a great need for them.
32:53 I'm telling you, this year, the difficult year for Mauritania people, not only for Mauritania
32:58 people, but I'm an official from Mauritania.
33:01 I will speak only for Mauritania now.
33:05 We have to import cereals.
33:06 And as you know, the conflict in Ukraine is not helping.
33:07 The Vice President of Sierra Leone has just mentioned the need to subsidize a lot of products,
33:17 but subsidize these with resources.
33:19 And this is a big issue.
33:22 Anyway, many projects may be deferred to subsidize these projects and it's not good for the future.
33:28 Specifically, Mauritania is being part of the G5 Sahel.
33:36 In the Sahel region where there are conflicts, very severe conflicts, people die every day.
33:43 And I think it's not by chance that in some countries there have been coups and counter-coups
33:53 in some of the five countries forming the G5 Sahel, Mauritania is channeled to support
34:03 the army.
34:04 This also costs a lot.
34:07 It's costs a lot to build capital, to do investment, and also to prevent the violence because to
34:15 prevent the violence, we need to invest on social service, basic social services.
34:21 Now there's a conflict on that, where to put the money.
34:25 For the army?
34:27 Or to prevent violence in investing in health, in schools, in roads, in water, etcetera?
34:35 This is a conflict and the international community has a role to play on that.
34:42 Mauritania is not classified as a fragile country.
34:48 I always wonder why.
34:50 But anyway, we should not fight to be a fragile country.
34:54 But the fact is that we are surrounded by conflicts.
34:59 We are part of Sahel.
35:03 We are experiencing the consequences of the climate changes.
35:08 All this is affecting our people, is affecting the way we are using our resources, and we
35:18 have taken initiatives by ourselves and we get support.
35:22 National support, better supports, supports from some institutions including the World
35:28 Bank, we are very thankful to what the World Bank is doing in Mauritania, especially these
35:34 two last years.
35:35 But the needs are there.
35:36 And we need much more than that.
35:39 What we have done specifically this year-
35:41 [Raj Kumar] Hey, just to ask you Minister, we need to
35:45 move on.
35:46 Can maybe finish that thought briefly, and then we'll move to our next speaker, please?
35:49 [Ousmane Mamoudou Kane] Just I wanted to give this example because
35:52 I think that it was interesting to share with you.
35:55 There is a region near Mali where most of the refugees are very close to the violence
36:07 in Mali.
36:09 What we did recently is to organize a round table with all the donors, members of what
36:17 we call Alliance Sahel, and we developed first a strategy for this region.
36:25 And the donors belonging to Alliance Sahel have come and then accepted to fund what we
36:31 proposed to them.
36:32 And it's an experience which we have to repeat in many other regions in the country.
36:36 Thank you very much.
36:38 [Raj Kumar] Thank you so much, Minister Kane.
36:40 And it's interesting to hear the resonance between your points and the points we heard
36:44 from the Vice President, Vice President Jalloh, on a tension that exists in terms of how to
36:49 prioritizing in your budget between security spending directly, direct health and education
36:55 delivery, food and the rising food prices…
36:57 All these are so immediate now, front-page stories, as they should be.
37:01 Susanna, this is what you work on every day at the OECD.
37:03 Maybe you can give us your thoughts on where we go from here as an international community.
37:07 [Susanna Moorehead] Yeah.
37:09 Thanks very much, Raj.
37:11 I mean, look, what do we do?
37:13 I think four things.
37:14 The first is don't give up and don't despair.
37:21 We have to keep investing in prevention, however hard it is.
37:26 It is worth doing, even though perhaps some might say it doesn't work.
37:31 And we have to keep working at collaboration between the World Bank, the UN bilateral agencies,
37:38 partner governments, civil society, and others.
37:42 This is what we call the humanitarian development peace nexus.
37:46 We've made a huge amount of progress, but there's a lot more to be done, and do involve
37:52 many, many more women in the process.
37:55 We know that that works.
37:57 The second is to be patient.
37:59 I've realized it's 10 years since that landmark World Development Report was published.
38:04 I think it was 2011.
38:06 I was the United Kingdom's Executive Director on the World Bank board at the time.
38:11 And the thing I remember most about that document was that recovery from fragility takes decades,
38:20 not years.
38:21 Sadly, what we're seeing in Ukraine destroy years of development, takes minutes.
38:27 But we have to be patient.
38:30 This is a long haul.
38:31 And I think his Excellency’s interventions on Sierra Leone bore testament to that.
38:37 The third is to be generous.
38:38 Now we've just had an enormous interim IDA replenishment, development Assistance Committee
38:45 members by far the most generous donors to both IDA and the replenishment.
38:51 But we need more resources.
38:53 I mean, my personal view, and it is a personal one, is that the resources that will have
38:58 to go into Ukraine at scale should be additional.
39:02 I don't think that the 80 plus million refugees and many, many tens millions more in the world
39:10 who were already hungry or displaced before this terrible crisis should be the hidden
39:15 victims of Russia's aggression.
39:18 We'll be discussing this in the committee at the end of the week, but I really call
39:23 on everybody who's listening to this to dig deep and realize that we have to invest in
39:31 recovery and success from day one.
39:35 My final point is don't forget about the longer term.
39:38 I mean, President Malpass mentioned climate change.
39:41 Many, many of the poorest people in the world are already living with the consequences of
39:46 climate change.
39:48 And it would be a fatal error to think that we can somehow push this down the road.
39:55 If we don't tackle this at the same time as the other crises of fragility, and debt, and
40:03 finance, we really will be in very, very dire straits in the not too distant future.
40:10 So a bit pessimistic, but I think we've made a lot of progress despite all the bad news.
40:16 And we just to have to redouble efforts and remind ourselves that this is a global crisis
40:22 and it requires global solutions, and the World Ban, I think, is uniquely placed to
40:28 help us tackle those.
40:29 Thank you.
40:30 [Raj Kumar] Thank you, Susanna, four excellent points.
40:32 Just to underline your comment about funds going to Ukraine for the response there.
40:38 If you think about what we heard from our colleagues here in Mauritania and Sierra Leone,
40:43 already the food price increases, which will come as a result of that war, are already
40:47 going to put a strain on budgets for many fragile countries.
40:50 It would be a real disaster if also development assistance were reduced to support the response.
40:55 A very important point you're making.
40:56 Let me bring in Kanni, if I can.
40:59 We have Kanni Wignaraja, again, the Assistant Secretary General for Asia and Pacific at
41:02 the UNDP.
41:03 [Kanni Wignaraja] Thank you Raj, and Vice President of Sierra
41:08 Leone and World Bank Group President Malpass and panelists, participants.
41:13 It is a pleasure to address the Fragility Forum representing the UN.
41:17 And with the political and human disaster as you have said unfolding in Ukraine, we
41:25 must redefine what we are calling fragile and our collective response to it.
41:31 I think with the pandemic, this war, the protracted conflicts, climate shocks and disasters, it's
41:38 hard to argue that we are not at a breaking point fragility.
41:44 It's a stark choice.
41:45 Either we just break down, say we can't do anything about it and go home, or we really
41:50 break through and do something.
41:53 When our UNSG introduced the Common Agenda to strengthen and accelerate multilateral
42:00 agreements, keeping the 2030 agenda at its core, we have to ask ourselves whether our
42:06 current response to fragile situations is really the best that we can do.
42:13 Now UNDP just launched, as you know, it's Human Security Report.
42:18 And there was some stark evidence here.
42:20 It says that despite improved human development over the past 30 years, six of seven people
42:27 worldwide report that they feel a higher level of insecurity, and that is correlated to a
42:34 higher level of mistrust.
42:37 So 1.2 billion people now live in conflict-affected areas.
42:42 And interestingly, half in countries that we do not usually consider fragile.
42:49 But the blind spot across north, south, east, west was a neglect of people's agency.
42:56 Now, when I look at UNDP's recent surveys in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Myanmar, there's
43:02 a chilling trend.
43:05 And Susanna pointed this out as did the Vice President and Minister.
43:10 Conflicts wipe out decades of development gains and push the majority of people into
43:15 poverty at a much faster rate than before.
43:19 Yet our collective response is to resort to short-term relief measures that we already
43:25 know cannot address this.
43:27 So yes, humanitarian assistance saves lives in the immediate days and weeks.
43:33 But beyond that, Raj, we know it takes bold steps to jumpstart local economies, invest
43:40 in trade and commercial activity, support the return of the banking sector to restart
43:46 schools, small enterprises, get the energy supply going and local jobs.
43:52 I think the VP of Sierra Leone made such a compelling case, and this is self-evident.
44:00 We should ask: Why do we wait so long?
44:04 We know it's about the domestic market for food, for fertilizer, for seeds, for renewables,
44:10 and essential services.
44:11 Interestingly, we know it's about a public service that gets back and gets paid with
44:18 everyone, able to earn a living wage and not rely on handouts.
44:24 The months and years that we remain stuck in a continued cycle of emergency only pushes
44:32 back real recovery.
44:34 We are part of that toll of fragility that becomes multi-generational.
44:41 In closing, I really hope this forum has the courage to debate these issues and question
44:48 some of our fundamental premises of fragility and global investment to recent events.
44:55 I think it must be planned the day before and executed the day after, which is a real
45:01 nexus.
45:03 No matter what we call it, you can call it nexus, humanitarian plus, early recovery,
45:08 resilience, doesn't matter.
45:10 No one is impervious to the political realities and negotiations such a response needs.
45:18 The UNDP crisis offer will be something different because we have to deliver a strategic plan
45:25 in toughest conflicts now that are increasing the world over.
45:30 So it is also heartening that the IFI is following the World Bank's lead, have new fragility
45:36 strategies.
45:37 Let me add to what Susanna said.
45:40 The big financial players, where you choose to spend early on makes a difference.
45:47 It will take states financing institutions, the bilaterals, private sector, NGOs, and
45:53 the UN across our disciplines to work much harder at coming together much sooner.
46:00 Because it's not just about charting a path out of fragility, it is to get out and to
46:05 stay out.
46:06 Now that will be a state of peace with empowered agency and sustainable progress that really
46:12 has meaning for all.
46:14 Thank you, Raj.
46:15 [Raj Kumar] Thank you, Kanni.
46:17 And this idea of breaking down or breaking through I think is so important and is a great
46:22 framing, hopefully, for this week of discussions, and maybe a great way to introduce Peter Maurer,
46:25 because Peter, you are so widely known for being someone who's pushing the humanitarian
46:29 sector constantly in a new direction, looking for innovation, looking to extend past the
46:35 traditional mandate.
46:36 I guess I wonder what your thought is in terms of where do we go from here.
46:41 [Peter Maurer] Thanks a lot, Raj, and colleagues, great to
46:44 be with you.
46:45 From my side as well, I think what I heard in the last 45 minutes is very much in sync
46:52 on what we look as well as the key trait of the challenges we are facing: increasing complexity,
47:01 multidimensional violence, conflict, climate change, pandemics, economic insecurity…
47:08 It all combines and compounds to what I have called hyper fragility and what we have seen
47:15 for a couple of years emerging, 80% of people are displaced irregularly around the world
47:21 come from roughly 25 contexts.
47:23 And these contexts become more numerous by the year and fragility are deepening.
47:31 That would be my second point that over the last 10 years, the dynamics of violence and
47:38 conflict have been key drivers of this fragility.
47:42 It's fragmentation of actors in the battlefield in the 40 contexts in which ICRC has its largest
47:49 operation; we count today more than 630 non-state armed groups, which is a highly fragmented
47:57 environment.
47:58 We see weapons availability.
48:00 David was talking about weapons availability in his introductory statement.
48:05 Weapons get cheaper by the day; food gets more expensive by the day.
48:11 We see the criminalization of political violence, the mix of criminal and political violence
48:19 emerging.
48:20 In many contexts, we see the urbanization of warfare with deep impacts on societies,
48:27 on systems, which changes fundamentally the way we think we see.
48:31 In the case of Ukraine, global power competition mixing with regional conflicts which gives
48:38 yet another increased dimension of fragility.
48:43 And we have counted last year more than 120 million people living outside of state control
48:50 in areas controlled by non-state armed groups.
48:54 These are some of the indicators coming to us as a humanitarian organization.
48:59 We see how different from one part and from one context to the other fragility emanates.
49:07 Sometimes, like in Afghanistan, it comes in cost conflict situation.
49:13 We increase fragility.
49:15 Sometimes it's the direct urgent impact of violence and conflict.
49:18 As we see today in Ukraine, sometimes it's the long-term effect of crisis, conflict,
49:26 destruction, as well as economic as we see it in Syria and Lebanon.
49:33 We have to be contextual to understand the dynamics of each one of these contexts.
49:39 So what to do?
49:41 Very briefly, I can just very much join what Kanni said in her introduction.
49:48 As you said, Raj, I have advocated for a new understanding of what humanitarian is.
49:54 We can't understand humanitarian just as short-term emergency relief; we have to be in the most
50:02 critical points to do much more systemic, much more long term, much more stabilization
50:09 work through humanitarian work.
50:14 It needs a new understanding of our tools.
50:17 We have to break down silos and have joined-up approaches, value chains of delivering to
50:26 people services to people.
50:28 We need more flexibility in our mandates and understandings because we have still too many
50:34 bureaucratic and procedural obstacles which stay in the way of working together, and have
50:40 those joined-up approaches that Kanni was advocating for and which I fully embrace.
50:46 I think we have to look at risk and how to de-risk our activities in the hyper fragile
50:55 context, because many of the actors, those with mandates and money and credit lines and
51:02 accountability procedures, can't take the risk to work with their tools in the places
51:10 where work is needed.
51:13 We need to look really at the way we work quite fundamentally.
51:18 But I'm very much really satisfied also that the Fragility Forum has become a place of
51:26 integrating humanitarian development, peace, security and other dimensions, which are so
51:32 critically important.
51:33 If I can add one thing just coming back from Niger is really this strong impression that
51:41 we see all those fragilities emerging and on most of the innovative approaches, innovative
51:48 finance, innovative approaches to community, land, ownership, production, everything which
51:56 is needed we see a lot of institutional and political obstacles to overcome.
52:02 In order to overcome, again, we need those joined-up approaches in which each of us is
52:10 placed to his own or her strength, but at the same time, we understand each other as
52:15 a response system and not as individual responses.
52:18 I'll stop it here.
52:19 [Raj Kumar] Thank you so much, Peter, and one issue that
52:21 might really be at the center, if you're taking a joined-up approach right now, if you're
52:26 doing, as Konni described at UNDP, a planning effort that cuts across traditional humanitarian
52:31 and development divides, might very well be food prices.
52:34 We've heard it from both the Vice President and the Minister, and I wonder maybe Kanni
52:38 or Susanna, do either of you have a take given how urgent and of the moment this issue is
52:44 on how we ought to address this issue of rising food prices and the strains that it will place
52:50 on humanitarian and development budgets, and the potential for increased fragility that
52:55 will come from it?
52:56 Would either of you like to comment on that topic?
52:58 Go ahead, Susanna.
53:00 [Susanna Moorehead] Well, I'm afraid Raj I don't have an answer.
53:07 I think it goes back to what a lot of people have said, one is that there are going to
53:14 be inexorable price rises in some parts of the system.
53:18 I don't think short term or even medium term it'll be easy to mitigate them.
53:27 But the only way to do it is to make sure the system works more smoothly so you join
53:32 up the humanitarian and development actors.
53:34 Where possible you protect food production.
53:39 That's often a sort of unintended consequence of conflict.
53:44 And I think, thirdly, it's sort of this striking point that weapons are now cheaper than food.
53:50 Short term, this is going to take more resource if we are going to feed people.
53:59 If we look back at the terrible famines of the seventies and eighties, there are maybe
54:04 some lessons there to pull out and think about prepositioning stocks, where you buy it, how
54:12 you make sure that it gets to the people who need it.
54:16 We have new instruments now to help target it through social protection programs and
54:22 other things.
54:23 But what everyone has really been saying is don't delay.
54:29 The more that you can prepare and protect, I don't want to say the cheaper it'll be,
54:34 the less expensive it'll be, the more lives you will save and I think the more likelihood
54:40 there is that you can protect livelihoods as well.
54:43 [Raj Kumar] Yeah.
54:44 Kanni, you've got this new strategy at UNDP.
54:46 I wonder how you will roll out that strategy in places like Afghanistan, places like Myanmar,
54:52 under these conditions that we're facing now where, as we heard from the Vice President
54:57 and the Minister, governments now have to choose between subsidizing food, which is
55:01 essential, and what they would spend maybe on defense or state security or on development
55:07 programs, health, and education.
55:09 And they're in a very difficult position trying to make that balance work.
55:12 [Kanni Wignaraja] Well to pick up also from what Susanna said,
55:16 I think, Raj, maybe three quick points.
55:19 First is that from the day before, not six months after, we've got to get into protecting
55:28 community livelihoods because that keeps the domestic markets, the local markets, open
55:34 and liquidity flowing through, and particularly to try and not distort the local food market.
55:43 And here, I think coming in fast but early on, having protected food production, I think,
55:50 is a huge part of that new approach to looking at prevention.
55:58 So it's not just the physical infrastructure, it's also the social infrastructure.
56:03 I would add there that we've got to look at a very different way of social protection.
56:10 I'm not even sure we should use that term, but it's making sure that people have a basic
56:16 income in order to be able to feed themselves and their families.
56:21 So that's one.
56:22 The second is I think looking at how the local financing sector of the food market, which
56:31 includes then things like credit guarantee schemes for farmers to buy seeds, buy fertilizer,
56:39 and be able to survive these major multiple shocks, is key.
56:45 This is what we are trying both in Afghanistan and in Myanmar.
56:50 Finally, maybe to say that we cannot put all our financing instruments, whether they're
56:58 market instruments, whether they're ODA instruments, in one basket.
57:04 The more we diversify the ability to look at finance, and that includes supporting country
57:13 states, bring down the cost of that debt and expand a little bit that fiscal space, I think
57:22 is absolutely essential.
57:24 These, to me, would be key ways in which UNDP would come in very strong in increasing areas
57:33 of fragility.
57:34 [Raj Kumar] We are running out of time, but I want to
57:37 just very briefly hear from Peter and then I want the Minister to close us with the last
57:42 thought.
57:43 Peter, is there an example where you see this working somewhere?
57:46 Some example of innovation where…
57:48 We heard a lot about service delivery, for example, which is traditionally thought of
57:51 as a development activity.
57:53 But where we've bridged this divide between humanitarian and development, and that is
57:57 reducing fragility in some contexts?
57:59 Very briefly, please?
58:00 [Peter Maurer] Well, very briefly.
58:02 I think the most successful parts are really in the water and sanitation part, where we
58:07 have managed to get out of short-termism into system building.
58:14 We are driving a project together with the World Bank on [inaudible] water system.
58:19 We have similar projects in [inaudible] in difficult and hyper fragile contexts where
58:24 water trucking is replaced by systematic and system stabilization.
58:32 Very similar with regard to food production where we managed to have really to go down,
58:39 in the Sahel we decreased food distribution by 30% last year and increased seed distribution
58:48 in order to have productive processes coming forward.
58:52 Even in the worst economic and fragile situations, we are managing to have income generating
58:59 activities replacing distribution activities.
59:02 These are just three short examples, just-
59:05 [Raj Kumar] Very helpful to hear-
59:06 [Peter Maurer] …if we work together.
59:07 [Raj Kumar] Very helpful to hear how we can do this.
59:10 I know we're almost at a time, but Minister Kane, we'd love to have you close out our
59:14 panel if you would with your final thought having heard this rich discussion today.
59:19 [Ousmane Mamoudou Kane] Thank you.
59:21 I would like to thank all those who have intervened.
59:24 Just very, very briefly to say that I would like to see debt being converted into actions
59:32 for soil regeneration.
59:36 I would like to see support from international community to help us provide water, provide
59:44 housing, provide education to the people in the remote areas which are affected or share
59:52 in contact with the violent terrorists.
59:55 I would like the support, see people in this community, supporting us to give hope to people
01:00:04 who are in these very, very remote areas and who have the temptation for them to go with
01:00:13 the violent people.
01:00:15 Thank you very much.
01:00:16 [Raj Kumar] Thank you so much minister.
01:00:18 I know all of you who are following this along are at least at home virtually clapping somehow.
01:00:24 I know there's a great response to this very rich conversation on a very serious and tragic
01:00:29 set of issues, but it's good to hear that there is progress, that there's some leadership,
01:00:34 and I appreciate the Fragility Forum really raising the attention and the volume on the
01:00:38 criticality of these issues right now.
01:00:41 Thank you for all of you who are joining us from around the world.
01:00:43 And my thanks to this fantastic panel, to the Vice President.
01:00:47 Thank you for being a part of this and it's been an honor to help kick off this year's
01:00:51 Fragility Forum.
01:00:52 Thank you.

Read the chat

Tala Khaki

Hi @Lindsey Jones, to add to your answer regarding a definition of Fragility, I find this a helpful source: fragilestatesindex.org

Mon, 03/07/2022 - 08:40

Justin T., World Bank

That concludes the discussion. Thank you to all who tuned in! Check back soon for a recording of the event, which will be made available on this page.

Mon, 03/07/2022 - 09:03

howardelliott@shaw.ca

Do you have any lessons from the 20+ projects of GAFSP that focused on FCV countries?

Mon, 03/07/2022 - 09:03

Learn more

Fragility Forum 2022

Fragility, Conflict & Violence

Watch Previous Editions of the Fragility Forum & More

Replay

September 1, 2020

Fragility Forum 2020 | Virtual Series Closing Session

Replay

March 5, 2018

Opening Plenary: Managing Risks for Peace and Stability

Replay

May 13, 2020

Conflict and the Pandemic: Tackling COVID-19 in Fragile Settings

Replay

April 29, 2020

Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty

Watch Other Related Events