A window into failure: Children peek through an artillery-battered wall of Mogadishu's Bakara Market, the
country's largest open-air forum. Sellers and buyers used to be well-stocked with food staples and other daily essentials. Today, the strongest product line is weapons -- everything from handguns to rifles to rocket-propelled grenades. Such arms have been the quickest means to power and subsistence in Somalia since chaos erupted 18 years ago. As Somalia claimed the No. 1 slot on the Failed States Index for a second year in a row, militant attacks had forced the country's fledgling transitional government literally into a corner; by December 2008, it controlled merely a few blocks in a country of 627,000 square kilometers.JOSE CENDON/AFP/Getty Images2.SUDAN
Life on the run: Conflict in Sudan has left 4.9 million of the country's 40 million people internally displaced; another roughly 400,000 have fled beyond the country's borders. Most, like this woman, have arrived in neighboring Chad, which borders Sudan's Darfur region. The security of refugee camps both within and outside Sudan remains tenuous. Rape 
and abduction have been widely reported in Darfur, where refugee women must travel miles from the camps for firewood and other supplies. Peace negotiations between government and Darfur rebel forces came in stops and starts in 2008, leaving little hope that the conflict would abate.
and abduction have been widely reported in Darfur, where refugee women must travel miles from the camps for firewood and other supplies. Peace negotiations between government and Darfur rebel forces came in stops and starts in 2008, leaving little hope that the conflict would abate. ( Left Photo of a pastoralist Sudanese women carrying belonging on her head in the hot Sahara desert)
3. ZIMBABWE
Burden of disease: On top of the flurry of political turmoil that followed Zimbabwe's contested presidential elections in the spring of 2008, another crisis soon erupted. Cholera, a preventable water-borne disease, broke out as thousands fled their homes, many trying to emigrate. Not surprisingl
y, the epidemic struck with particular strength near the refugees' destination: the South African border. By January 2009, 57,702 people had been infected, leaving more than 3,000 dead, according to the World Health Organization. The family here buries a relative who died of the disease 25 km from Harare in December 2008.
Burden of disease: On top of the flurry of political turmoil that followed Zimbabwe's contested presidential elections in the spring of 2008, another crisis soon erupted. Cholera, a preventable water-borne disease, broke out as thousands fled their homes, many trying to emigrate. Not surprisingl
y, the epidemic struck with particular strength near the refugees' destination: the South African border. By January 2009, 57,702 people had been infected, leaving more than 3,000 dead, according to the World Health Organization. The family here buries a relative who died of the disease 25 km from Harare in December 2008.( Left Zimbabwe: many die of lack of medicine food and general health in addition poverty , government crackdown and lack jobs)
4. CHAD
Feuding neighbors: A Chadian soldier looks on as protests fill the Chadian capital of N'Djamena on May 13, 2009, where President Idriss Déby denounced his eastern neighbor, Sudan. Just a few weeks e
arlier, the two countries had agreed to end years of proxy battles on each others' territories. But two days later, Chad accused Sudan of attacking its forces along the border. The neighbors' spat has helped exacerbate conflict that has now spread from Darfur into eastern Chad and the Central African Republic.
GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty Images
Feuding neighbors: A Chadian soldier looks on as protests fill the Chadian capital of N'Djamena on May 13, 2009, where President Idriss Déby denounced his eastern neighbor, Sudan. Just a few weeks e
arlier, the two countries had agreed to end years of proxy battles on each others' territories. But two days later, Chad accused Sudan of attacking its forces along the border. The neighbors' spat has helped exacerbate conflict that has now spread from Darfur into eastern Chad and the Central African Republic.GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty Images
Photo left is of a Chadian soldier looking at protests in the Capital.
5. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO Fatal neglect: The magnitude of crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is staggering. Some 45,000 people die every month, the International Rescue Committee estimates, putting the total dead since 1998 at 5.4 million -- more than in any conflict since World War II. All but 0.4 percent of the deaths come from preventable diseases and malnutrition -- a phenomenon that has arisen due to horrid conditions in displacement camps
that lack infrastructure, basic supplies, and proper medical care. The displaced children seen here, in a camp in eastern Congo, are among the 1 million displaced from North Kivu province alone.
that lack infrastructure, basic supplies, and proper medical care. The displaced children seen here, in a camp in eastern Congo, are among the 1 million displaced from North Kivu province alone. Photo left is of neglected children of the DRC who are often recruited as child soldiers and mining child labour
6.CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
The middle seat: A man squats in a refugee camp in the northern Central African Republic (CAR), after a rebel raid
sent refugees fleeing. CAR is surrounded on all sides by conflict -- and the small country of just 4.5 million has suffered greatly as a result. In addition to CAR's own homegrown rebellion, Sudan and Chad's conflicts have pushed both refugees and fighters into the country's north. In the southeast, Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army has made incursions into CAR as it flees Ugandan and Congolese attempts to expel it from their own territory.
The middle seat: A man squats in a refugee camp in the northern Central African Republic (CAR), after a rebel raid
sent refugees fleeing. CAR is surrounded on all sides by conflict -- and the small country of just 4.5 million has suffered greatly as a result. In addition to CAR's own homegrown rebellion, Sudan and Chad's conflicts have pushed both refugees and fighters into the country's north. In the southeast, Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army has made incursions into CAR as it flees Ugandan and Congolese attempts to expel it from their own territory.7. IVORY COAST
A toxic mess: A woman and her daughter carry food near a toxic waste site in the Ivory Coast. Tens of thousands fell ill after a massive amount of toxic waste was dumped in the country over three years ago. The incident, first reported in September 2006, was appalling: "[A] ship unload
ed 500 tons of petrochemical waste into a number of trucks which then dumped it in at least 15 sites around Abidjan," the United Nations said. The offending company has since agreed to pay $198 million in reparations for the country's government, but the health effects resulting from the mess will not disappear so easily.
A toxic mess: A woman and her daughter carry food near a toxic waste site in the Ivory Coast. Tens of thousands fell ill after a massive amount of toxic waste was dumped in the country over three years ago. The incident, first reported in September 2006, was appalling: "[A] ship unload
ed 500 tons of petrochemical waste into a number of trucks which then dumped it in at least 15 sites around Abidjan," the United Nations said. The offending company has since agreed to pay $198 million in reparations for the country's government, but the health effects resulting from the mess will not disappear so easily.8.KENYA
Clean and clear: Children play in Nairobi's vast Korogocho slum, located on the banks of the Nairobi River. Kenyan authorities have begun a massive slum clearance program in an effort to clean up the river's heavily polluted waters. T
heir efforts could force more than 125,000 people to lose their homes, according to Amnesty International. Half of Nairobi's population lives in similar slums, the organization found, crammed into just 1 percent of the city's land area.
Clean and clear: Children play in Nairobi's vast Korogocho slum, located on the banks of the Nairobi River. Kenyan authorities have begun a massive slum clearance program in an effort to clean up the river's heavily polluted waters. T
heir efforts could force more than 125,000 people to lose their homes, according to Amnesty International. Half of Nairobi's population lives in similar slums, the organization found, crammed into just 1 percent of the city's land area. Failed State Index 2009
It is a sobering time for the world’s most fragile countries—virulent economic crisis, countless natural disasters, and government collapse. This year, we delve deeper than ever into just what went wrong—and who is to blame.
Yemen may not yet be front-page news, but it’s being watched intently these days in capitals worldwide. A perfect storm of state failure is now brewing there: disappearing oil and water reserves; a mob of migrants, some allegedly with al Qaeda ties, flooding in from Somalia, the failed state next door; and a weak government increasingly unable to keep things running. Many worry Yemen is the next Afghanistan: a global problem wrapped in a failed state.
It’s not just Yemen. The financial crisis was a near-death experience for insurgency-plagued Pakistan, which remains on imf life support. Cameroon has been rocked by economic contagion, which sparked riots, violence, and instability. Other countries dependent on the import and export of commodities—from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea to Bangladesh—had a similarly rough go of it last year, suffering what economist Homi Kharas calls a “whiplash effect” as prices spiked sharply and then plummeted. All indications are that 2009 will bring little to no reprieve.
Instead, the global recession is sparking fears that multiple states could slip all at once into the ranks of the failing. Now more than ever, failed-state triage could become a grim necessity for world leaders from the United Nations and World Bank to U.S. President Barack Obama’s White House. All of which puts a fine point on an old and uncomfortable dilemma: Whom do you help when so many need it?
This is a sober question for sober times, and it is the backdrop for the fifth annual Failed States Index—a collaboration between The Fund for Peace, an independent research organization, and Foreign Policy. Using 12 indicators of state cohesion and performance, compiled through a close examination of more than 30,000 publicly available sources, we ranked 177 states in order from most to least at risk of failure. The 60 most vulnerable states are listed in the rankings.
Figuring out which faltering states to help depends in large part on what they need. After all, as Tolstoy might have put it, every failing state is failing in its own way. Georgia, for example, jumped 23 places in this year’s index due to a substantial spike in that elusive indicator, “Invaded by Russia.” Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are failing because their governments are chronically weak to nonexistent; Zimbabwe and Burma are failing because their governments are strong enough to choke the life out of their societies. Iraq is failing, but its trajectory may be toward greater success, while Haiti is failing as well, and it is hard to imagine success around the corner.
It is also a harsh fact that a greater risk of failure is not always synonymous with greater consequences of failure. For example, Zimbabwe (No. 2 on the index) is technically failing more than Iraq (6), but the geopolitical implications of state failure in Iraq would be far greater than in Zimbabwe. It’s why we worry more about Pakistan (10) than Guinea (9), and North Korea (17) more than the Ivory Coast (11).
Then take the paradoxical case of Iran, which jumped 11 spots in the rankings this year. With an already faulty economy, a vampire state mismanaging it further, and a global recession on top of all that, it is no surprise that Iran is faltering. But the state is not failing—indeed, it is succeeding quite well—in one rather important respect: the pursuit of nuclear weapons. And it is this “success,” more than Iran’s myriad failings, that keeps it above the fold of other worrying news.
FAQ & Methodology
Yemen may not yet be front-page news, but it’s being watched intently these days in capitals worldwide. A perfect storm of state failure is now brewing there: disappearing oil and water reserves; a mob of migrants, some allegedly with al Qaeda ties, flooding in from Somalia, the failed state next door; and a weak government increasingly unable to keep things running. Many worry Yemen is the next Afghanistan: a global problem wrapped in a failed state.
It’s not just Yemen. The financial crisis was a near-death experience for insurgency-plagued Pakistan, which remains on imf life support. Cameroon has been rocked by economic contagion, which sparked riots, violence, and instability. Other countries dependent on the import and export of commodities—from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea to Bangladesh—had a similarly rough go of it last year, suffering what economist Homi Kharas calls a “whiplash effect” as prices spiked sharply and then plummeted. All indications are that 2009 will bring little to no reprieve.
Instead, the global recession is sparking fears that multiple states could slip all at once into the ranks of the failing. Now more than ever, failed-state triage could become a grim necessity for world leaders from the United Nations and World Bank to U.S. President Barack Obama’s White House. All of which puts a fine point on an old and uncomfortable dilemma: Whom do you help when so many need it?
This is a sober question for sober times, and it is the backdrop for the fifth annual Failed States Index—a collaboration between The Fund for Peace, an independent research organization, and Foreign Policy. Using 12 indicators of state cohesion and performance, compiled through a close examination of more than 30,000 publicly available sources, we ranked 177 states in order from most to least at risk of failure. The 60 most vulnerable states are listed in the rankings.
Figuring out which faltering states to help depends in large part on what they need. After all, as Tolstoy might have put it, every failing state is failing in its own way. Georgia, for example, jumped 23 places in this year’s index due to a substantial spike in that elusive indicator, “Invaded by Russia.” Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are failing because their governments are chronically weak to nonexistent; Zimbabwe and Burma are failing because their governments are strong enough to choke the life out of their societies. Iraq is failing, but its trajectory may be toward greater success, while Haiti is failing as well, and it is hard to imagine success around the corner.
It is also a harsh fact that a greater risk of failure is not always synonymous with greater consequences of failure. For example, Zimbabwe (No. 2 on the index) is technically failing more than Iraq (6), but the geopolitical implications of state failure in Iraq would be far greater than in Zimbabwe. It’s why we worry more about Pakistan (10) than Guinea (9), and North Korea (17) more than the Ivory Coast (11).
Then take the paradoxical case of Iran, which jumped 11 spots in the rankings this year. With an already faulty economy, a vampire state mismanaging it further, and a global recession on top of all that, it is no surprise that Iran is faltering. But the state is not failing—indeed, it is succeeding quite well—in one rather important respect: the pursuit of nuclear weapons. And it is this “success,” more than Iran’s myriad failings, that keeps it above the fold of other worrying news.
FAQ & Methodology
How is the Failed States Index made?
Answering the question of which failed states demand attention might well come down to which are deemed to pose the biggest threat to the world at large. But even the widely presumed linkage between failing states and terrorism is less clear than many have come to assume since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sounded the alarm about the consequences of governments not in control of their territory. Take Somalia, once again the No. 1 failed state on this year’s index. A recent report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, drawing on captured al Qaeda documents, revealed that Osama bin Laden’s outfit had an awful experience trying to operate out of Somalia, for all the same reasons that international peacekeepers found Somalia unmanageable in the 1990s: terrible infrastructure, excessive violence and criminality, and few basic services, among other factors. In short, Somalia was too failed even for al Qaeda.
Which failed states are global security threats and which are simply tragedies for their own people? This is one question that will matter most this year of living dangerously, and there are others we present in the following pages: Which countries might blow up next? Are there pockets of success within states of failure? And who (or what) is to blame when things go bad—corrupt leaders, dysfunctional societies, bad neighbors, a global recession, unfortunate history, or simply geography itself?
The Failed States Index does not provide all the answers, nor does it claim to be able to. But it is a starting point for a discussion about why states fail and what should be done about them—a discussion, sadly, that we might be having even more frequently this year.
» Read On
Answering the question of which failed states demand attention might well come down to which are deemed to pose the biggest threat to the world at large. But even the widely presumed linkage between failing states and terrorism is less clear than many have come to assume since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sounded the alarm about the consequences of governments not in control of their territory. Take Somalia, once again the No. 1 failed state on this year’s index. A recent report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, drawing on captured al Qaeda documents, revealed that Osama bin Laden’s outfit had an awful experience trying to operate out of Somalia, for all the same reasons that international peacekeepers found Somalia unmanageable in the 1990s: terrible infrastructure, excessive violence and criminality, and few basic services, among other factors. In short, Somalia was too failed even for al Qaeda.
Which failed states are global security threats and which are simply tragedies for their own people? This is one question that will matter most this year of living dangerously, and there are others we present in the following pages: Which countries might blow up next? Are there pockets of success within states of failure? And who (or what) is to blame when things go bad—corrupt leaders, dysfunctional societies, bad neighbors, a global recession, unfortunate history, or simply geography itself?
The Failed States Index does not provide all the answers, nor does it claim to be able to. But it is a starting point for a discussion about why states fail and what should be done about them—a discussion, sadly, that we might be having even more frequently this year.
» Read On
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