Navigating fragility for a more peaceful world : CSPPS at the 2024 World Bank Fragility Forum
From 27 to 29 February 2024, CSPPS took part in the World Bank Fragility Forum (FF) ‘Adapting and Innovating in a Volatile World’ in Washington DC, USA. Organised every two years, the Fragility Forum gathers various actors from governments, the peacebuilding, development and humanitarian sectors, the private sectors, researchers, as well as civil society, with the aim to exchange experiences and address challenges of developmental interventions in countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence. As the world is currently facing multiple, complex and interlinked threats - including a multitude of ongoing conflicts, increased poverty, and growing impacts of climate change - there is an urgent need to adapt funding activities to this evolving context.
Civil society actors have a key role to play in engaging with the donor community, as well as with other stakeholders working on peacebuilding, humanitarian and development issues, to stress the need for multi-stakeholder partnerships and dialogue to identify and develop viable solutions to manifestations of fragility, conflict and violence. However, an effective engagement from the civil society, especially from the local level, in this partnership also requires adequate, predictable and sustained access to funding opportunities. Moreover, there is also a clear need to change the narrative regarding donor-beneficiaries relationships, to avoid top-down approaches and instead promote local ownership and localised funding activities. Achieving locally-led development will only be possible with a partner-to-partner relationship between the donor community and the beneficiaries at the local level.
With the aim of engaging with the donor community and other actors on these issues, CSPPS attended this year's Fragility Forum, in which CSPPS coordinator, Peter van Sluijs, took the floor during several sessions of the Fragility Forum. In addition, CSPPS co-hosted an informal and strategic discussion, in the margins of the Forum, on 29 February 2024 on; ‘Navigating fragility for a more peaceful world: Catalysing commitments, partnerships and financing for SDG16+ and the 2030 Agenda’. This event was co-organised with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, the TAP Network, the Accountability Lab and United Nations Foundation. This informal meeting provided a unique opportunity to: 1) Convene key partners from donors, global and multilateral institutions and civil society to explore approaches to support greater action, commitments and financing for SDG16+; 2) Explore the interlinkages between fragility, conflict, violence, peacebuilding, governance and all other SDG16 issues, as well as the 2030 Agenda more broadly; 3) Develop strategies for aligning with key opportunities in 2024, including the thematic review of SDG16 at 2024 High-level Political Forum, the Summit of the Future and other key policy moments.
