This report reflects DFID’s infrastructure related work taking place in countries that have experienced conflict and the different approach towards infrastructure provision that this requires. The paper addresses the range of experience and knowledge resulting from this work in different countries with a view to providing a background resource for advisors and contractors working in similar situations.  The report covers the infrastructure sectors  water and sanitation, transport, shelter, communications and energy as well as the reinstatement of public buildings.

It looks at some success stories that may offer useful policy lessons for other post-conflict countries. The investment patterns show that telecoms investments, particularly mobile telephony, materialize immediately after (sometimes even before) the end of the conflict. Electricity generation and distribution projects start to emerge about three years after the conflict and increase in frequency after year five. Private investment in transport and water tend to come much later. Within the transport sector, seaports receive the majority of private investment.

Written by IFC staff in the field, they provide operational knowledge on what works and what doesn’t on topics including results measurement, gender issues, public-private partnerships, and business regulation reforms.

New thinking on the nature of fragility and risk shows a shift from a one-dimensional understanding of fragility towards a more holistic approach in which degrees of fragility exist on a spectrum. This approach recognises the need for collaborative, regional and global solutions to tackle the root causes - and that acknowledges the need to broaden the use of institutional influences, policy levers and expertise “beyond aid”.

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the World Bank Group's (WBG) engagement in contexts of fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). Its central message is that the Bank will only achieve its Twin Goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity by increasing its impact in FCV settings. The report provides insight on how Global Practices and teams across the WBG are tackling these critical challenges, with a focus on cross-cutting fragility issues that appear across geographies and sectors.

The private sector can help break the cycle of conflict, fragility, and poverty that persists in many fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). This study draws on academic research and IFC’s experience with the private sector in FCS to derive lessons on how to engage with the private sector to foster growth, job creation, and stability.

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Poor energy access in fragile contexts impedes development, traps people in extreme poverty, and creates structural conditions for the persistence of conflict and social, political, and economic instability. Fragility affects not only those living in these countries – it drives the global challenges of mass migration, terrorism, and trafficking that impact us all.

SMEs in general, but especially in FCV contexts, face major costs, risks and capacity and financial constraints. Such challenges may be particularly acute in public procurement and related markets when PSP initiatives are being developed and implemented. Creating an enabling environment for SME participation in PSPs in FCV contexts involves an entire ecosystem.

FasoBiogaz SARL is an enterprise located in the industrial zone of Kossodo in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and operates the first industrial biogas plant connected to the SONABEL power grid. With an installed electrical capacity of 275 kW, the plant is transforming slaughterhouse waste and other available organic substrate into biogas and digestat. While biogas is transformed into electricity and injected into the national power grid, the digestat is commercialized as biofertilizer. The project is financed by the Dutch private investor company Van Kersbergen Invest B.V.

The PHARES program is developed by the Government of Haiti in close collaboration with the IDB and the WB and aims to increase the access of rural and peri-urban communities to solar energy and in particular to provide access to affordable, accessible sustainable and high quality electricity, through sustainable energy services, through mini-grids using renewable energy, storage and conventional generation units (if necessary), developed and operated by private sector operators. In this mix, at least 50% of the energy produced and consumed must be generated from renewable energy sources.