The 2021 Fragile 15: Upheavals in a time of COVID
After a pandemic year, the concept of “fragility” seems more relevant than ever. As the rankings in this year’s annual Fragile States Index (FSI) suggest, global emergencies such as COVID-19 can expose the fault lines that feed assumptions about what fragility is, which states are fragile, and what resilience looks like in the face of crises.
Drawing on our first-hand, on-the-ground reporting, we offer a glimpse at the lives behind the FSI data in three categories: The five most fragile states; five with notable increases or decreases in fragility; and five that are dealing with key humanitarian crises. We hear from Yemenis struggling to buy food for their families, from Syrian refugees in Lebanon confronting spiralling inflation, from asylum seekers at the southern US border dealing with Trump-administration policies put in place during the coronavirus pandemic – policies that effectively cut off access to asylum.
An index measuring country stability finds the U.S. dropping
The Fragile States Index shows a worrying trend and it hasn’t yet accounted for the events of 2020 and 2021.
Published
18 Jan 2021, 17:08 GMT
January 6 2021: Trump supporters storm the Capitol building, in culmination of unrest in the wake of the presidential election. The events of this day will likely cause the social and political cohesion score to drop for 2021.
Photograph by lev radin / Alamy
The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 blindsided many in the United States and abroad. But it may not have surprised close readers of the Fragile States Index. Produced annually by the nonprofit organisation Fund for Peace, the index assesses pressures on individual countries that potentially undermine their stability.
An index measuring country stability finds the U.S. dropping Rachel Hartigan
The insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 blindsided many in the United States and abroad. But it may not have surprised close readers of the Fragile States Index. Produced annually by the nonprofit organization Fund for Peace, the index assesses pressures on individual countries that potentially undermine their stability.
Over the past decade, many countries have become less fragile. The U.S., on the other hand, has become less stable. Indeed, the country is among 20 states that have seen the highest percent increase in relative fragility over the past 10 years a list that includes Syria, Venezuela, and the United Kingdom.