Donor approaches to risk in fragile and conflict affected states

This is a comparative study donor of approaches to risk management in fragile and conflict affected states. The findings are based on evidence from four case study countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Somalia and Nepal (and additional examples drawn from Myanmar, Afghanistan and Haiti). The study was commissioned by the OECD INCAF Task Team on Finance and Aid, who identified a need to complement ongoing policy level work on risk management with evidence from the field on how donors manage risk in practice. The research set out to address three questions: (1) How do donors act in response to various categories of risk, and how does this affect the impact of aid programmes? (2) What factors explain why they respond to risks in these ways? and (3) What examples can be found of effective risk management practices in different countries and what explains their success?