The international community must rethink its approach to "fragile states" such as Somalia and Afghanistan to ensure security and development go hand in hand, the head of the World Bank said Friday. Bank President Robert Zoellick said in remarks prepared for a security conference in Geneva that soldiers and aid workers should cooperate to provide coherent policies to lift countries out of poverty and conflict.
One billion people are estimated to live in such states, including 340 million of the poorest people in the world, he said. "Without this co-operation, efforts to save fragile states are likely to fail, and we will all pay the consequences," Zoellick warned. "Only by securing development can we put down roots deep enough to break the cycle of fragility and violence."
Zoellick said that the World Bank has committed over three billion dollars (two billion euros) in the fiscal year 2008 in development assistance to countries hit by fragility and conflict, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Ivory Coast and the Palestinian territories. "But this work is not just a matter of money," he said.
"Commitment to helping fragile states also means sustained attention to signs of fragility and conflict, and countering the myriad risks that threaten security, governance, development - and legitimacy." To this end, Zoellick said that efforts should be focused on tangible and visible projects such as education and refuse collection to bolster a state's legitimacy, rather than grandiose political schemes of elections.
"Legitimacy in fragile situations is not just achieved through elections or agreements that share power among factions. In some cases, premature elections may actually trigger a new cycle of violence," he cautioned. He also called for lengthier and better-resourced deployments by United Nations peacekeepers in countries recovering from conflict.
"To build confidence, UN peacekeeping mandates and renewals should be authorised for much longer than 6 to 12 months. In some cases, we may need mandates that are less restrictive, so UN operations can prevent the outbreak of violence," he said.
Only this week, the UN's independent human rights expert on Sudan charged that the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur was ill-equipped to protect the civilian population from armed attacks.
Zoellick also said that macroeconomic stability was a prerequisite for wider social recovery. "Countries need to get the fundamentals right - fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies - so that there can be stable economic conditions that permit markets to expand," he said.
However, reforms cannot be imposed in such a way that jeopardise political stability, and must bear in mind issues such as rising food and energy prices. Overall, Zoellick said the entire multilateral structure that emerged at the end of World War II needs to be reformed to meet the realities of the 21st century. "The time is ripe, and the dangers - and opportunities - of fragile states will be on the agenda for all of us," he said.