Ranking fragile states for support facility: A fuzzy topsis approach

Abstract

Countries described as 'fragile states' need timely sustained assistance to help rebuild basic infrastructure and institutions. However, with available funds becoming limited and number of 'fragile states' increasing, competition for such assistances have also become intense. To select countries for the fragile states support facility, a number of unquantifiable criteria are used by the African and Asian Development banks to select countries eligible for such supports. This paper uses fuzzy TOPSIS to provide an alternative to the African Development Bank (AfDB) selection method to choose deserving countries for the fragile states support facility. A numerical example based on pre-defined triangular fuzzy numbers (TFN) is used to demonstrate how selection and rankings of such countries can be carried out. The proposed method can deepen transparency and fairness in the way the bank selects countries for the support facility.