Commentary: Think like a spy when working with aid agencies to end poverty

WASHINGTON: For anyone working to end poverty, fragile states call for the ultimate juggling act. Countries in conflict seldom control their territories, and even when most areas are at peace, others may still be engulfed by violence for decades to come.

The US Agency for International Development , for example, spent US$242 million on third-party monitoring contracts between 2006 to 2015 in Afghanistan. Development organisations began integrating fragility and conflict into their country analytics in the early 2000s. A 2016 paper reviewed 35 different frameworks that address fragility, risks, and resilience to many shocks, ranging from violence to pandemics and natural hazards.

They would require, for instance, giving aid workers in charge of massive poverty-reduction projects access to confidential field reports from UN peacekeepers and diplomatic cables from embassies whose countries provide large sums of money.

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