ABSTRACT
Over the last fifteen years, the media have made us familiar with the notion of fragility. Afghanistan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo … they are among the countries that are labeled ‘fragile’ in newspaper articles and news bulletins. The stories about these countries evoke images of societies in conflict and chaos, where people live in poverty and lack access to the most elementary services. Security and justice are absent. Governments are at best incompetent, but more often they aggravate the volatile situation and are implicated in human rights abuses. These countries are a far cry from what ‘we’, living in donor countries, consider decently organized societies. These countries are dangling at the bottom of the Human Development Index. They need foreign assistance to get their house in order – if there is any hope of that at all.
