What is "fragility?"

The OECD’s 2015 States of Fragility report defines state fragility as a “combination of exposure to risk and insufficient coping capacity of the state, system and/or communities to manage, absorb or mitigate those risks.”

But this simple definition belies the huge and varied number of factors that can figure into fragility, such as the ability of the state to provide basic services equitably across groups, guaranteeing the personal security of a state’s citizens, ensuring the freedom of those citizens from state oppression, enshrining the ability of those citizens to make economic and life choices, as well as many other factors that are difficult to quantify.


Image: Mosul, Iraq in 2017. Source: The New York Times.

The Project

This project takes six different indices—Freedom of Press 2017 and Freedom in the World 2018, both from Freedom House, Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2017, UNDP's Human Development Index 2015, The Fund for Peace's World Fragility Index 2017, and The Word Bank's Gini Index 2015—and maps them in a single dynamic map so that viewers may make comparisons across countries.

Since each of these indices measure different aspects of fragility, as measured from different organizations with their own specialties and biases, new insights can be gained.


Image: Slums in India. Source: Pbs.org.

How to Use This Map

Use the radio buttons on the top right to toggle each index the map displays. The dropdowns on the left have additional information on each index, with a color ramp legend. The darker the color, the more of a particular quality a country has (e.g. dark red indicates more corruption).

Use the focus buttons to center the map on a particular area of interest, e.g. Africa, the Americas, etc.

Finally, click on a country to display a popup window with values from all indicies for comparison (where available).


Image: UN peacekeepers in Haiti. Source: Haitiliberte.com.