Violence

By Paula Fynboh

There’s a cemetery near Montgomery, Minnesota (USA) where my parents will be buried.  It’s the same cemetery where my grandparents were buried.  And it is the same place where my great-grandparents found their final resting place.  What does this have to do with displacement?  It offers me a physical connection to my roots, something many internally displaced people in many countries do not have.

I recently sat down with Maria Isabelle, one of the participants of the Bogota Wage Subsidy Project (BWSP), to hear her story.  The BWSP is a start-up organization working with women displaced by conflict in Colombia to build personal equity and transition from informal to formal employment. Read More »

By Edvin Arnby Machata

The state is a key player in implementing successful development strategies. The state collects taxes and uses these for public investment like roads and schools, from which society will reap rewards in the form of a growing economy and better way of living. More fundamentally, the state provides the legal framework – courts, laws, and police forces – that shape economic activity in the country. A state that effectively maintains these functions is called a strong state.

Too many developing countries however have weak states, which instead of facilitating economic development are often inhibiting it through corrupt policies that only benefit a small part of the population. In the search for ways to improve the capacity of today’s weak states, it is useful to consider how today’s strong states emerged. Read More »