Working Paper
Aid and Institution-Building in Fragile States

Institution-building in Somalia has met with high levels of failure for two decades. But successes have occurred in other Somali-inhabited regions of the eastern Horn, and have been especially present at the local and municipal level. The most effective aid to institution-building in Somalia has been carefully calibrated support to hybrid local governance arrangements that enjoy a strong degree of local ownership and which deliver practical, urgently needed services.