State Fragility and State Building in Africa

This chapter examines how and in what ways the weakening of state legitimacy in Kenya is caused by elite manipulation of ethno-cultural diversity in the country. It relied on a review of recent literature discussing the problem of Kenya’s episodic political instability, as well as the primary research method of in-depth interviews with some of the key Kenyan political analysts and activists. The chapter argues that ethnic communities in the country have overtime come to distrust one another because of development imbalances while cultural traditions, historical relations, and competition over state resources have become avenues of accentuating hostilities among ethnic communities and denying the state its political and moral legitimacy to govern effectively.

Zimbabwe is one of the Sub-Saharan countries that have long been regarded as a success story of economic and institutional development, but has recently been plagued by various forms of state fragility, characterized by unprecedented declines in economic performance, lack of authority, legitimacy and capacity to deliver social services and security. This chapter seeks to examine the drivers, dimensions and effects of state fragility in Zimbabwe since 2000. Inspired by the Critical Discourse Analysis, it uses content analysis, interviews and the author’s own lived experiences as a citizen and resident of the country in examining the degree and intensity of fragility. Its central argument is that although there are both exogenous and endogenous factors influencing state fragility, institutionalized corruption renders it internally induced. The corruption patterns are endogenous to the political structure, systemic and planned. There is state complicity in the perpetuation of fragility in pursuit of parochial economic and political interests. The political elites are reluctant to reverse it because they are deriving spoils from its perpetuation. State fragility has been converted into an institutionalized net for harvesting national resources by the governing elites. It is concluded that state institutions that include the Central Bank and security organs have been reduced to ‘harvesting’ rods or tools of institutionalized corruption and hence incapable of providing any effective restraint on the Zimbabwe state fragility, especially lack of authority, legitimacy and capacity.

The post-apartheid South African government under the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) has since 1994 pre-occupied with formulating and implementing macro and micro economic reform measures aimed at changing the skewed and asymmetrically structured economy. Disappointingly, the government has failed to achieve what it had set out to do. The challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality still continue to loom large and engulf the majority of South African black population. Using secondary and primary data this chapter interrogates post-apartheid South Africa’s formulation and implementation of policies as a measure of state capacity. It argues that post-apartheid South Africa is beset with a crisis of state capacity which constrains its policy formulation and implementation processes to yield intended outcomes. It suggests that state fragility in South Africa is mainly a result of state incapacity.

This chapter explores the causes, nature and extent of failure of the Zimbabwean state to meet its obligations between 2000 and 2008. It approaches state fragility through lenses of the service delivery capacity dimension. It will examine the causes for state fragility, the in/actions that precipitated the fragility and the scope and extent of state fragility. The chapter analyzes the decline in service delivery in the three sectors of education, health and agriculture. The study relies on secondary data including statistical indicators generated by the government of Zimbabwe, United Nations agencies, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It argues that the inherited colonial structural inequalities and exclusion in access to public services – based on race – established the root causes for state failure; and the post-independence policies, misappropriation of state resources, military adventurism and international isolation precipitated the decline of state delivery capacity. Regional intervention was significant in preventing further decline and instigating efforts to reconstitute the service delivery capability of the state.

Whilst there are many studies that document and analyze the nature and extent of fragility and state building at country levels, little attention is paid to the linkages within a regional context. This chapter interrogates the nature of fragility in Zimbabwe, its linkages, and implications for its neighbours within the Southern African region. It uses the regional linkage analytical framework to understand the fragility dimensions. The chapter argues that internal action clusters in a fragile state have a tendency to link and establish similar clusters in the neighbourhood and that fragility is not only about the actions of state actors inside Zimbabwe but also about actions and perceptions by external actors.

Ethiopia has several ongoing capacity building and reform programs that are directed towards realizing stability and resilience against fragility. This chapter assesses the effectiveness of Ethiopia capacity building programs by using a conceptual framework that embraces the input, process, intermediate and ultimate outcome model. Relevant documents on capacity building activities in Ethiopia were reviewed to obtain the necessary data for the assessment. From the findings, the chapter concludes that the large gains made in the last 10 years in politics, governance, administrative reforms, education, health and other social services are indicative of effectiveness of the capacity building initiative. It, however, notes that the country still remains politically, economically and socially fragile, the primary reasons being the challenges to and degradations in authority and capacity.

Despite being the second largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa, Angola is plagued by massive poverty, inequality, corruption and poor rule of law record. The Angolan situation is consistent with the ‘resource curse’ or the ‘paradox of plenty’ phenomenon. This chapter discusses the dynamics of state fragility in Angola. It argues that in spite of its enormous natural resources, Angola suffers from state fragility. It illustrates Angola’s state fragility by taking into account the governance failure (transparency, accountability, rule of law), diminished role of civil society, limited access to information and weak service delivery.

This chapter examines the nature and dynamics of state fragility and post-conflict capacity building efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), focusing on key issues relevant to socioeconomic development. The analysis uses existing literature to explore the causes of fragility in the country and to document the crucial role played by the civil society in tackling some of the post-conflict challenges that the state cannot adequately address. The discussion of the drivers of state fragility details how weak local and national governance structures, protracted civil war and ethnic strife, and the failure to build a national consciousness are exacerbating the problem of state fragility. The chapter explores how the civil society has stepped in to provide badly needed services by initiating and supporting capacity building projects in the country. It is argued that given the current challenges facing the state, civil society organizations will continue to be key players in peace building and provision of essential services to the people of the DRC.

Lesotho can be considered as a fragile state due to its weak governance institutions like the electoral system, which produces persistent and perverse political conflicts. This chapter establishes the relationship between state fragility and the country’s Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system. The MMP was introduced as a conflict management mechanism but was exploited by political actors, in the 2007 election, at two levels: the procedural and the behavioural level. The findings of the study indicate that the procedural rules governing the implementation of the MMP system have shortcomings, which influenced the behaviour of key political actors to manipulate these weaknesses so as to achieve desired electoral outcomes. The weaknesses manipulated emanate from its “contamination” effects and its electoral formula which produced distorted electoral outcomes that aggravated rather than mitigated conflict. The MMP’s role in enhancing conflict management and good governance is, therefore, relatively weak in its current form in Lesotho.

This book takes forward the discourse on state fragility and state rebuilding. States are essential for the promotion of the welfare, security and prosperity of our global community and individual nations. Moreover, state fragility is more widespread than thought. In Africa generally and especially in eastern and southern Africa, the chapters demonstrate first that the causes of fragility are quite complex, rooted in historical, social, political, economic, global and domestic sources. Secondly, they also show that state building is a long term, multidimensional process but one in which reverses are possible along the way. In the absence of strong and effective social mechanisms and institutions to contain the symptoms of state failures, state fragility could be sudden and degenerate rapidly. Finally, rebuilding state capacity is a herculean but not an impossible though significant task, given the fact that about one third of all Africans, some 200 million people, are estimated to live in states classified as fragile. This chapter concludes by highlighting the critical steps towards sustainable institutional effectiveness and resilience, core to any state rebuilding agenda.