Since 2011, the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) has sought to understand how processes of post-conflict recovery and state-building play out in some of the world’s most challenging contexts – and to equip policy-makers and practitioners with better information on how to support these processes.

Over the past six years, we have learned that state-building and recovery are turbulent processes – and supporting them requires more than technical ‘best-practice’ fixes. Policy and programming need to become more adept at navigating politics, building relationships, and responding to ever-changing situations.

This synthesis briefing – one of two in this series summarising the results from SLRC phase I – details five key findings, and associated policy implications, for policy-makers and practitioners working to support state-building, service delivery and recovery in fragile and conflict-affected situations.