BY THE FUND FOR PEACE AND PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVES IN THE NIGER DELTA The Nigerian Presidential and National Assembly elections of March 2015 were widely praised by international observers as free and fair, with relatively peaceful outcomes across most states. However, among those states with elevated levels of political conflict was Rivers, where tension has cascaded […]
Category Archives: Hannah Blyth
Violence Affecting Women and Girls Monthly Memo – June 2015
- 14 August 2015
This memo covers the month of June 2015 (data coding and uploading lags by a month) for the focus states of Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta.
Conflict Bulletin: Imo State – Patterns and Trends, 2012-2015
- 10 August 2015
BY NATE HAKEN AND PATRICIA TAFT* Imo state has a population of approximately 3.9 million people, according to the 2006 census. The population is predominantly Igbo (98%). The capital city of Owerri is the largest in the state. Imo is made up of 27 Local Government Areas (LGAs). Natural resources include palm oil, mahogany, crude […]
Violence Affecting Women and Girls Monthly Memo – May 2015
- 20 July 2015
This memo covers the month of May 2015 (data coding and uploading lags by a month) for Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta.
Violence Affecting Women and Girls Quarterly Report 4
- 09 July 2015
BY PATRICIA TAFT* The following report summarizes the main findings as detailed in three memos produced during the fourth quarter of data collection and analysis. This quarterly report covers the time period from February through April 2015. *Kendall Lawrence and Hannah Blyth also contributed to this report. Download the full report in PDF format
Sparkling Finnish: Sustainable Scandinavia
- 17 June 2015
BY HANNAH BLYTH AND J.J. MESSNER Every year, the most stable end of the Fragile States Index appears to tell a familiar story. Since the Fund for Peace began assessing all major countries in 2006, Scandinavia has held a near-monopoly on the least fragile end of the Index.
A Long Way from the Orange Revolution: Ukraine’s Fall from Grace
- 17 June 2015
BY HANNAH BLYTH With the memories of optimism that came with the 2004 Orange Revolution fading, 2014 saw Ukraine once again become a regular fixture in the media headlines, but this time for far less hopeful reasons. The removal of a president, incursions by Russian-backed rebel forces and conflict throughout much of the country’s east, […]
Total Scores Are Not All That They Seem: The Cases of Iran, Lebanon, and Russia
- 17 June 2015
BY HANNAH BLYTH In viewing the annual Fragile States Index scores for a particular country, it is important to look at the underlying indicators to properly understand a country’s challenges and performance. Even where a country may have an overall trend in one direction, its individual indicators may actually be heading in very different directions. […]
Widespread Violence and Insecurity Strikes the Central African Republic
- 17 June 2015
BY NAKE HAKEN AND HANNAH BLYTH The Central African Republic (CAR) is a vast, beautiful land about the size of Texas, but with a fraction of its population. It is home to sprawling herds of forest elephants roaming the Dzanga-Ndoki national park along the Sangha River. Logging towns have sprung up where Muslim merchants sell […]
Springtime for Castro and Cuba; Winter for Ukraine and Libya
- 17 June 2015
BY J.J. MESSNER AND HANNAH BLYTH South Sudan has topped the Fragile States Index for the second year in succession, as the country continues to be wracked by internal conflict, fractious politics, and poverty. South Sudan is joined at the most fragile end of the Index by countries that have long struggled, such as Somalia, […]