Breaking Out of Fragility

Breaking Out of Fragility PDF Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464816379
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Iraq is at a crossroads. Almost two decades after the 2003 war, the country remains caught in a fragility trap, facing increasing political instability, growing social unrest, and a deepening state-citizen divide. Amid a multitude of crises—including an oil price shock, the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent instability and protests—coupled with poor economic policies, a lack of reforms, and an inability to tackle corruption, Iraq is having its worst annual economic growth performance in 2020 since the fall of the Saddam regime. But with every crisis comes an opportunity to reform. Iraq can embark on a long but much-needed path toward structural transformation, one that could leave its economy less dependent on oil and more driven by private sector activity. Such a path can no longer be avoided, as has been illustrated by the widespread protests since October 2019. This report highlights what Iraq can do to sustain future growth; it also shows why Iraq has not yet managed to achieve high levels of diversified growth alongside peace, stability, and a better standard of living for its people. Iraq’s high levels of fragility and conflict--reinforced by high oil dependency--hinder the country’s prospects for economic reform and growth. Despite Iraq’s existing sociopolitical and economic environment, three encouraging messages emerge from this report. First, there is a peace dividend in Iraq. Iraq’s per capita GDP was about one-fifth lower in 2018 than it would have been if not for the conflict beginning in 2014. Thus, maintaining peace can by itself be a strong driver of growth. Second, Iraq has latent export potential for a variety of goods that, if tapped, could diversify the country’s economy, raise living standards, and boost economic resilience. Third, Iraqi agriculture could be revived to serve as a pillar of a more diversified and private sector†“led economy.

Breaking Out of Fragility

Breaking Out of Fragility PDF Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464816379
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Get Book Here

Book Description
Iraq is at a crossroads. Almost two decades after the 2003 war, the country remains caught in a fragility trap, facing increasing political instability, growing social unrest, and a deepening state-citizen divide. Amid a multitude of crises—including an oil price shock, the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent instability and protests—coupled with poor economic policies, a lack of reforms, and an inability to tackle corruption, Iraq is having its worst annual economic growth performance in 2020 since the fall of the Saddam regime. But with every crisis comes an opportunity to reform. Iraq can embark on a long but much-needed path toward structural transformation, one that could leave its economy less dependent on oil and more driven by private sector activity. Such a path can no longer be avoided, as has been illustrated by the widespread protests since October 2019. This report highlights what Iraq can do to sustain future growth; it also shows why Iraq has not yet managed to achieve high levels of diversified growth alongside peace, stability, and a better standard of living for its people. Iraq’s high levels of fragility and conflict--reinforced by high oil dependency--hinder the country’s prospects for economic reform and growth. Despite Iraq’s existing sociopolitical and economic environment, three encouraging messages emerge from this report. First, there is a peace dividend in Iraq. Iraq’s per capita GDP was about one-fifth lower in 2018 than it would have been if not for the conflict beginning in 2014. Thus, maintaining peace can by itself be a strong driver of growth. Second, Iraq has latent export potential for a variety of goods that, if tapped, could diversify the country’s economy, raise living standards, and boost economic resilience. Third, Iraqi agriculture could be revived to serve as a pillar of a more diversified and private sector†“led economy.

White Fragility

White Fragility PDF Author: Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807047422
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Exiting the Fragility Trap

Exiting the Fragility Trap PDF Author: David Carment
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 082144686X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
State fragility is a much-debated yet underinvestigated concept in the development and international security worlds. Based on years of research as part of the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy project at Carleton University, Exiting the Fragility Trap marks a major step toward remedying the lack of research into the so-called fragility trap. In examining the nature and dynamics of state transitions in fragile contexts, with a special emphasis on states that are trapped in fragility, David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy ask three questions: Why do some states remain stuck in a fragility trap? What lessons can we learn from those states that have successfully transitioned from fragility to stability and resilience? And how can third-party interventions support fragile state transitions toward resilience? Carment and Samy consider fragility’s evolution in three state types: countries that are trapped, countries that move in and out of fragility, and countries that have exited fragility. Large-sample empirical analysis and six comparative case studies—Pakistan and Yemen (trapped countries), Mali and Laos (in-and-out countries), and Bangladesh and Mozambique (exited countries)—drive their investigation, which breaks ground toward a new understanding of why some countries fail to see sustained progress over time.

Chaos Engineering

Chaos Engineering PDF Author: Casey Rosenthal
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 1492043818
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
As more companies move toward microservices and other distributed technologies, the complexity of these systems increases. You can't remove the complexity, but through Chaos Engineering you can discover vulnerabilities and prevent outages before they impact your customers. This practical guide shows engineers how to navigate complex systems while optimizing to meet business goals. Two of the field's prominent figures, Casey Rosenthal and Nora Jones, pioneered the discipline while working together at Netflix. In this book, they expound on the what, how, and why of Chaos Engineering while facilitating a conversation from practitioners across industries. Many chapters are written by contributing authors to widen the perspective across verticals within (and beyond) the software industry. Learn how Chaos Engineering enables your organization to navigate complexity Explore a methodology to avoid failures within your application, network, and infrastructure Move from theory to practice through real-world stories from industry experts at Google, Microsoft, Slack, and LinkedIn, among others Establish a framework for thinking about complexity within software systems Design a Chaos Engineering program around game days and move toward highly targeted, automated experiments Learn how to design continuous collaborative chaos experiments

Building Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa's Fragile States

Building Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa's Fragile States PDF Author: Mr.Enrique Gelbard
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513550012
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 99

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Book Description
This paper analyzes the persistence of fragility in some sub-Saharan African states and the multiple dimensions of state weakness that are simultaneously at play. This study also provides an overview of the analytics of fragility, conflict, and international engagement with fragile states before turning to an assessment of the current state of affairs and the areas in which there has been progress in building resilience. The paper also looks at the role of fiscal policies and institutions and analyzes growth accelerations and decelerations. Seven country case studies help identify more concretely some key factors at play, and the diversity of paths followed, with an emphasis on the sequencing of reforms. The paper concludes with a summary of the main findings and policy implications.

Antifragile

Antifragile PDF Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812979680
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile “Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist “A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek

Willful Subjects

Willful Subjects PDF Author: Sara Ahmed
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822376105
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In Willful Subjects Sara Ahmed explores willfulness as a charge often made by some against others. One history of will is a history of attempts to eliminate willfulness from the will. Delving into philosophical and literary texts, Ahmed examines the relation between will and willfulness, ill will and good will, and the particular will and general will. Her reflections shed light on how will is embedded in a political and cultural landscape, how it is embodied, and how will and willfulness are socially mediated. Attentive to the wayward, the wandering, and the deviant, Ahmed considers how willfulness is taken up by those who have received its charge. Grounded in feminist, queer, and antiracist politics, her sui generis analysis of the willful subject, the figure who wills wrongly or wills too much, suggests that willfulness might be required to recover from the attempt at its elimination.

Avoid a Fall Or Fly Again: Turning Points of State Fragility

Avoid a Fall Or Fly Again: Turning Points of State Fragility PDF Author: Olusegun Ayodele Akanbi
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513573683
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
High persistence of state fragility (a fragility trap) suggests the presence of substantial benefits from avoiding a fall into fragility and considerable hurdles to successful exit from fragility. This paper empirically examines the factors that affect the turning points of entering and exiting from state fragility by employing three different approaches: an event study, the synthetic control method, and a logit model. We find that avoiding economic contraction is critical to prevent a country on the brink of fragility from falling into fragility (e.g., among near fragile countries, the probability of entering fragility would rise by 40 percentage points should real GDP per capita growth decline from +2.5 percent to -2.5 percent). Also, strengthening government effectiveness together with increasing political inclusion and maintaining robust economic activity should help make exit from fragility more successful and sustainable. In the current environment (the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath), the findings suggest the importance of providing well-directed fiscal stimulus with sufficient financing, (subject to appropriate governance safeguards and well-designed policies), and protecting critical socio-economic spending to keep vulnerable countries away from being caught in a fragility trap.

Nice Racism

Nice Racism PDF Author: Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807074136
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Building on the groundwork laid in the New York Times bestseller White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explores how a culture of niceness inadvertently promotes racism. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized and challenged the belief that racism is a simple matter of good people versus bad. DiAngelo also made a provocative claim: white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of color. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so. Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over 25 years working as an anti-racist educator, she picks up where White Fragility left off and moves the conversation forward. Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include: • rushing to prove that we are “not racist” • downplaying white advantage • romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC) • pretending white segregation “just happens” • expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism • carefulness • and feeling immobilized by shame. DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups’ rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability. Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who recognizes the existence of systemic racism and white supremacy and wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice. BIPOC readers may also find the “insiders” perspective useful for navigating whiteness. Includes a study guide.

States of Fragility 2020

States of Fragility 2020 PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264985166
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
States of Fragility 2020 sets a policy agenda for fragility at a critical turning point: the final countdown on Agenda 2030 is at hand, and the pandemic has reversed hard-fought gains. This report examines fragility as a story in two parts: the global state of fragility that existed before COVID-19, and the dramatic impact the pandemic is having on that landscape.