Since its independence in 1960 the CAR has faced incredible instability with continual political upheavals, coups, and struggles for power. At the heart of the issue is a number of divisions in the country including political affiliation, religion, land, and ethnicity. These divisions have led to a multitude of armed groups within the CAR pursuing their own agendas. While the problems in the CAR are extremely complex, the Central African Republic Electoral Democracy Initiative (CAREDI) aims to monitor and secure the democratic process of voting for the CAR’s upcoming local elections, the first of their kind since 1988. This initiative could provide citizens with a safe democratic process while giving legitimacy to the election results, and mitigating violence. Subsequently providing citizens with legitimate local governance to work from the bottom up. Due to the mandate’s nature, the initiative will also leave the CAR with a greater capacity for local electoral monitoring in the future. While CAREDI will not solve the complex issues of the CAR, it will provide citizens with the opportunity to safely cast their vote for a legitimate local government. As a result, citizens of the CAR may finally have credible representation at the local level. This may incentivize local democratic, political, and civil society participation to address the nation’s issues.

CAREDI

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To be implemented over a minimum of two years, the Water Infrastructure and Education Program (WIEP) is purposed with providing access to potable water and education for water safety and water treatment to Haitians. The program is oriented towards providing water infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters, provides checks on the transitional government’s capacity to provide basic resources educations for the maintenance of sanitation services. This will reduce the effects of humanitarian crises, promote education in environmental issues, encourage transitional governance and promote economic development. The program will work in conjunction with the UNDP via NGOS for the provision, installation and maintenance of sustainable water, wastewater, and irrigation infrastructure. This work will be achieved through the Government of Canada’s partnership with the UNDP, Haiti’s transitional government and NGOs for reporting mechanisms and the provision of resources and education access.  WIEP Haiti Policy Brief

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Gang violence, fueled by corrupt and elite oligarchs has exacerbated the already declining
human development situation in Haiti with a great deal of Haitians now experiencing alarming levels
of food insecurity. Additionally, as gang violence expands from the occupied capital of Port-au-Prince
into neighbouring areas like Cité Soleil, many youths with no other viable opportunities are being
recruited and exploited by gang forces. The Haitian Intervention Program for Youth (H.I.P.Y) is a
project aimed to work with local NGOs within the Cité Soleil neighbourhood to strengthen food
security with gardening knowledge and skills production. This program will also create a youth
soccer league, aimed to deter youth away from the violence that surrounds them, and instead
provide safe and community-oriented environments. This project proposal will begin by addressing
the logistical description of the project, including stakeholders and project timeline, then will provide
a pre-project risk assessment before highlighting the monitoring process and concluding with a
summary of how the post-project impact will be measured. In collaboration with GAC and local
NGOs, this project hopes to address food insecurity while also providing opportunities for
disaffected youth amid a complex and dangerous conflict.

Haitian Intervention Program for Youth – HIPY

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HOP aims to improve the security and social situation in Port-au-Prince through the development an
implementation of a community policing policy with the Haitian National Police (HNP). The community policing approach will contribute to moving past a system that relies heavily on punishment and force, which to date has proved ineffective, and will focus on collaborating with civil society and constructive problem-solving. Led by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), HOP has a budget of 20 million dollars (Canadian) and will provide comprehensive community policing training to 100 recruits and facilitate engaged dialogue between the police and the people of Port-au-Prince over two years.

Haitian Overhaul in Policing – HOP

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Aid Effectiveness: Carment Samy

The objective of this paper is to focus on fragility research findings and examine what
works or does not work in development aid and development cooperation in fragile and conflict affected contexts. We draw on our own research findings as well as country-level studies. We examine questions of aid effectiveness in the context of supporting good governance in fragile states in the first part of the paper. We then consider the impact of COVID-19 and implications
for aid effectiveness in fragile states in the second part. In the third and final section we briefly
consider how the war in Ukraine is impacting fragile states and the long-term prospects for aid
effectiveness in an era of geopolitical rivalry and great power competition.

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Haiti Fragility Brief 2023

The African slaves who manumitted themselves from the French in 1804 changed their nation to its Taino name: “Ayiti”, or Haiti, means “high mountains”. The uneven terrain which covers much of the country’s 27,065km² is home to the larger half of a mountainous watershed Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. This area is home to roughly 5 million people and declining, while the capital Port-au-Prince and its satellites is home to roughly 6 million and increasing. A large majority of Haitians are of African origin, follow Christian and Vodou beliefs, and speak Haitian Creole or French (Haiti’s official languages). Haiti is particularly vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters as a result of ecocidal policies, a lack of sufficient disaster preparedness, and geographic location. Haiti’s political system has been equally susceptible to shocks, suffering from corruption, foreign exploitation, and political interference constantly throughout its long history. Haiti has seen several de-facto one-man Presidential regimes since January 2015, when President Michel Martelly dissolved Haiti’s National Assembly. His successor, President Jovenel MoĂŻse did the same in January 2020. Haiti’s turbulence and the apparent incapacity of the state to account for the needs of the population have resulted in several periods of urgent international attention in the wake of the 2010 and 2021 earthquakes.

The Haitian state has tended to have as much incentive to fight against the population as to serve it, and a culture of political violence has thrived for those at the top. Up until now, Haitian poverty has been profitable for an elite few. Today, Haiti is the poorest country in the Latin America region, and one of the poorest countries in the world. Haiti is prone to environmental shocks, such as the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck the country in 2010. Decades of unrelenting social and political shocks had left a hollow state unable to direct what few resources it had, nor the respective spike in aid flow, effectively. Codependence between the Haitian ownership class and the foreign interests in Haiti has resulted in an increasingly violent struggle for power by elites, arming and unleashing mercenaries or police against rival elite and neighborhood alike. The scourge of violence has now multiplied out of control, with gang leaders claiming open fiefdoms practically unchecked, primarily using sexual violence to terrorize the population.Even before the current unchecked crisis, democratic demonstrations from an alienated majority have been met with lethal force by an insecure government. Thus the picture of state fragility in Haiti is multidimensional: the government is pinned in a legitimacy trap by a pattern of gangsterization and weak state capacity.

The feedback loops which reproduce the crises in Haiti cannot be simply problematized. Indeed, many issues identified in this analysis are not unique to Haiti: the lack of distributive justice and the damage it causes to public trust in the state and between communities; rising urbanization, scarcity, and disease due to climate change and land despoliation; worsening elite capture and political interruption by domestic and foreign elites. Much of the world currently experiences each of these trends to some degree while, much like in Haiti, decaying patriarchal-colonialist institutions pose an existential threat to democratic efforts. In Haiti, these institutions have been upheld by violence, and where they fail it is often more violence that emerges in the vacuum. Whether this cultural trauma will continue to reproduce is the one trend for which this report does not directly offer a policy option. While it will be necessary to somehow disarm the increasing gang violence and address the roots of gangsterism in Haitian culture, this in itself will not resolve the Haitian crisis. This report offers a conjunction of policy options tailored to Canadian foreign policy based on a political economy which locates Haiti within the wider systems of coloniality that constitute so much of global North-South relations. Through cooperation with Haiti, we believe Canada is well-positioned to play a role in the burgeoning of new, decolonial principles of engagement between and within peoples of all nations.

Haiti Fragility Brief 2023

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Marshall Islands Fragility Brief 2022 

Located in the central Pacific Ocean, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is a small island developing state (SIDS) that faces growing fragility. While not listed on most fragile state indices nor imparting negative spillover effect on neighboring countries, the RMI’s state of fragility requires attention from the international community in three main aspects. First, SIDS feel the effects of climate change most acutely and serve as an early warning system for other countries. Second, the RMI is a beneficial case study in terms of (1) illustrating climate change adaptation processes relevant to SIDS and other island states and (2) demonstrating techniques on how to garner the international community’s support and aid in climate change adaptation. Finally, the RMI’s case of fragility illustrates the need for policymakers to look beyond symptoms when assessing state fragility and focus on structural causes.

With the significance of the RMI’s fragility established, the RMI is currently facing a moderate level of fragility with primary drivers including governance, economy, and environment clusters. The country is stuck within a capacity trap with low capacity, economic dependency, and isomorphic mimicry. This cycle is perpetuated by the government’s reliance on aid actors, creating a feedback loop that reinforces government ineffectiveness. Using four six-month scenarios as a guide, three policy options have been created for this report’s end user, the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The policy options include: (1) a disaster risk insurance scheme to support resiliency to natural disasters; (2) an entrepreneurship program to diversify the private sector; and (3) a group of CSOs to collaborate with the government and the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) to strengthen service delivery. Moreover, as a key financier of development projects in the Asia Pacific region, the ADB holds a strong potential for impact due to their acute awareness and attention to SIDS. With a relationship spanning over 30 years, the ADB has the knowledge and capacity to support the RMI in a path towards strengthened capacity, legitimacy, and authority.

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Venezuela Fragility Brief 2022

Once the richest country in Latin America, Venezuela currently rests in a delicate equilibrium between stability and fragility. The hybrid regime and rentier state characteristics of the government have meant that institutional frameworks create false illusions of adherence to democratic processes and rule of law. The individuals forming the country’s elite, namely high ranking military and United Socialist Party of Venezuela officials, are able to maintain power by relying on oil revenues to establish provisional stability among state security forces and non-state armed groups. The desire to maintain the status quo, notably in the context of a contested presidency, is demonstrative of a capacity trap, a negative feedback loop between reduced capacity and legitimacy. In the context of Venezuela, it is caused by an unwillingness to improve the country’s situation by those in power. This has led to a neglect of the social contract, leading to significant levels of poverty, food insecurity, and emigration. It has also led to the mismanagement of the country’s resources, which threatens Venezuela’s long-term stability. Societal trust in governing institutions is low.

The present brief analyzes the drivers of fragility for Venezuela following the methodology of the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy. Characterized as having a high impact on the country’s fragility, with a deteriorating trend, the primary drivers of Venezuela’s fragility are the Governance and Economic Development clusters. The overall worsening of indicators in these clusters has a snowball effect which negatively impacts the secondary drivers of fragility: Security and Crime, Human Development, Demography and Population, and Environment. To resolve the structural causes of fragility, three policy options are presented. They are based on scenarios projected over the next six months and focus on improved relations between Venezuela and the US, technical policy training for government officials, and regional border security enhancement.

This brief is directed to the Organization of American States as it is well positioned to address the structural causes of Venezuela’s fragility. The organization maintains an extensive network of partners, has significant technical experience, and is mandated to promote democracy, human rights, and security in Latin America. Despite challenging the jurisdiction of the OAS in 2017, contested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros has expressed a willingness to engage in negotiations with the opposition in order to work towards lifting US sanctions. The OAS can therefore use this to encourage the government’s participation in the proposed Policy Options One and Two. In the event he declines to engage, Policy Option Three presents a course of action that does not require Venezuela’s cooperation.

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Policy Project REDEEM Western Sahara

Project R.E.D.E.E.M., or Repatriation and Demilitarization Established in Morocco, is a track II, inclusive, and locally-based project with an initial 5-year timeframe and the possibility of renewal. The project will endeavour to improve the stability of Western Sahara through mediation sessions and youth economic empowerment initiatives with both short-term outcomes and long-term impacts. The initial mediation session will attempt to secure an agreement between various primary stakeholders that would allow for the successful repatriation of Sahrawi refugees from Algeria into Western Sahara over 10 years and a renewed commitment to upholding the ceasefire, specifically around the road near Guerguerat. Empowering the youth in Western Sahara will not only allow repatriated refugees to gain the skills needed to begin sustaining themselves but allow the region to develop economically as a whole and lead to improved indicators regarding the economic, demographic, and conflict-related conditions of the region

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Policy Project SUCEED Somalia

The ceaseless conflict and insecurity that have continually plagued Somalia too often overshadow the people, communities, and livelihoods caught in between. Underlying these challenges are demographic stresses and socio-economic tensions that must be properly addressed for any meaningful progress to be made. With a budget of $20m, The Somali Unified Canadian Collaboration for Economic and Educational Development (SUCCEED) Project will help address these underlying challenges through two objectives: 1. Informal facilitation of peace talks and peace education training sessions with regional clan leaders. 2. Economically empowering regional Somali women to increase their participation in decision making. The project seeks an ultimate outcome of helping to resolve broader socio-economic tensions and political conflict in the country

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