Forum of Federations 20th Anniversary: Fragility

Fragile states pose a unique challenge for the development community. While no two are identical, fragile states are more likely to experience higher rates of poverty, violence, regional instability, social or ethnic division, and weak or missing institutions. In many fragile states, in an attempt to sustain peace, accommodation and stability and to share power concepts such as devolution, decentralization and federalism are being brought into the political discourse.

Pathways for Peace, released in 2018 by the United Nations and World Bank, provides the most significant recognition of the importance of federalism and decentralization to reducing state fragility. It plainly asserts that federalism has “proven effective in many cases in reducing local violent conflict where there is horizontal inequality among groups […].” How federalism and local government can play a role in efforts to build state resilience in a discernible subset of fragile contexts, what the challenges and opportunities are, and which role the international (donor) community can play, are questions to be addressed in this webinar.

Featuring:

Rupak Chattopadhyay (Moderator)
President and CEO, Forum of Federations

Bob Rae
Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York

Ruth Huber
Ambassador, Assistant Director-General, Head of Department Cooperation with Eastern Europe, Switzerland

Abdi Aynte
Former Minister, Ministry of Planning & International Cooperation, Federal Government of Somalia

Muna Luqman
Founder of the organization Food4Humanity and co-founder of the Women in Solidarity Network, Yemen