ISE was founded in 2005 by Dr. Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart to develop integrated approaches to state-building and provide independent, authoritative and practical policy advice to the international community and national leaders who are tasked with creating effective states in a globalized world.

ISE’s integrated system for state-building evolved through many years of research and development. In late 2001, the ISE team was called on to design the Bonn Agreement, the National Development Strategy and a key set of policies and instruments to stabilize Afghanistan after the expulsion of the Taliban.

In 2005, recognizing the urgency of finding strategic, practical and operational solutions to state failure world-wide, the ISE team moved their attention from a specific country context- Afghanistan- to state-effectiveness more broadly, and mobilized a group of leading experts and practitioners in the subject to work towards consolidation and refinement of an integrated approach to state-building.

On this practical and theoretical basis, the team has since deployed its methodology in various country contexts, interacting with national leaders and their international counterparts at the highest levels. ISE’s work to produce actionable strategies in each of these places presented a stark alternative to the business-as-usual approach of the aid system- and has met considerable acclaim from both national leaders and international analysts. ISE has now been asked by stakeholders to re-visit each of these countries and provide further state-building strategy and reform advice in 2008-10.

The ISE team has written a number of articles and other publications on issues of state fragility, state-building and globalization.

ISE Annual Reports


   Annual Report 2010 (PDF 8.80MB)
   Annual Report 2009 (PDF 4.65Mb)
   Annual Report 2008 (PDF 4.16Mb)

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"[Their] framework for effective state-building has been lauded in the field of post-conflict reconstruction. Whether in the regions of China, India, and Russia where Ghani worked with the World Bank, or in more recent state building analysis in Lebanon, Sudan, and Nepal, it has helped make the case for effective and stable institutions."

    - Hernando de Soto, President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy and author of "The Mystery of Capital", in a Letter to the Editor, Washington Post, October 2006

The Ten Functions of the State

 

ISE in the MEDIA