Will the real “fragile state” please stand up?

This article considers the rapid rise and fall of an international development project in Papua New Guinea (PNG) funded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). USIP was tasked with identifying local peace-building initiatives to support under the Global Fragility Act 2019, a US law that sought to change how international interventions were chosen and designed. The USIP-funded project in PNG collapsed when USIP itself was dismantled by the current White House, leaving partners in PNG suddenly unemployed and without funding. These events illuminate the nature of ‘state fragility’, an increasingly popular discourse in development circles, and the ironies inherent in how this fragility concept was used to frame interventions by a state that has itself proven extremely fragile in its international commitments.