introduction
23 pdg Partnership for Democratic Governance
Introduction How did this handbook come about? The OECD’s Partnership for Democratic Governance (PDG) was set up in October 2007 to examine how the international community could best help fragile states or those recovering from conflict (see Box 0.1) to strengthen their core policy functions (including through contracting them out). The initiative brought together a group of like-minded countries and international organisations at a time when several organisations, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, were also reflecting on different approaches for allowing these states to operate successfully and to address the basic needs of their citizens.1 In June 2009, the PDG and the African Development Bank (AfDB) co-hosted a conference on “Contract-
pdg Partnership for Democratic Governance
ing Out Core Government Functions and Services in Post-Conflict and Fragile Situations”.2 The objective of the conference was to examine how contracting out government functions and services in fragile states could be compatible with the long-term goals of capacity development and state building. The conference gathered 80 participants from a wide range of development aid stakeholders: OECD members (Canada, Chile, Japan, Poland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Commission), non-OECD donors (Brazil), international organisations (Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and United Nations Children’s Fund), NGOs and the private sector. Fifteen partner countries from Africa
Box 0.1 What do we mean by fragile states?
The donor community is still debating how to define “fragility”. There are numerous typologies, as well as many quantitative indices that measure different features of fragility. The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) defines a fragile state as one which is unable to “meet its population’s expectations or manage changes in expectation and capacity through the political process” (Jones et al., 2008).
There is no fixed list of countries which are in situations of fragility and this handbook does not aim to categorise countries. Instead it aims to provide a tool for policy makers working in states with limited capacity to address the essential needs of their citizens. To make this handbook more user-friendly, instead of using the full term “states in post-conflict and fragile situations”, we talk about “fragile states”.
More information: Jones, B., et al. (2008), From Fragility to Resilience: Concepts and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile States, OECD, Paris.
1. These approaches include the use of public-private partnerships and or output-based aid (see the Glossary at the end of this handbook and Annex D).
2. See OECD (2009a), Contracting Out Government Functions and Services: Emerging Lessons from Post-Conflict and Fragile Situations, Partnership for Democratic Governance (PDG), OECD, Paris.
OECD PDG HANDBOOK ON CONTRACTING OUT GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS AND SERVICES IN POST-CONFLICT AND FRAGILE SITUATIONS © OECD 2010