Whole of Government Approaches

OECD’s principles for ’good international engagement in fragile states and situations’ point to the need to use a mixture of political, security and development instruments. Therefore OECD has suggested that donors develop ’Whole-of-Government approaches’ when engaging in peace- and state-building in areas with limited and contested presence of state institutions, such as Somalia, Afghanistan and DR Congo.

This DIIS report looks into donors’ experience with such approaches as documented in recent evaluations. Based on these evaluations the report suggests that there is a need to better grasp the trade-offs between political, security and development objectives as well as the consequences of the choices made.

Furthermore the report questions one of the assumptions behind attempts to forge Whole-of-Government approaches, namely that development aid can help improving security and stabilizing fragile situations. This can happen in some contexts where credible political settlements and transition plans exist. But in many other contexts, there is little evidence to suggest that improved service provision and short term reconstruction efforts necessarily lead to improved security for the population.