Each year the U.S.-based non-governmental organization the Fund for Peace releases its “Fragile States Index.” This list details countries that are particularly vulnerable to collapse due to a wide range of social, economic and political or military indicators.

These indicators, among many others, include refugees, internally displaced persons, sustained human flight from the country, uneven development or sharp economic decline, deterioration of public services and tyrannical governance in various forms.

In part one of this AFKInsider miniseries we detailed all-too-common phenomena across the African continent, countries that the Index views as immensely vulnerable to collapse.

In particular, we profiled the five most vulnerable countries, South Sudan, the top of this year’s list, Somalia, which topped the list from 2008 until last year, Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with Chad, another mainstay in the top five over the past several years.

Precious few countries across the continent rank as truly threat-free. According to the Index, the two most stable countries on the mainland are South Africa and Botswana, at 115 and 121 in the world (out of 178 countries monitored) respectively.

These two countries, despite being the most stable the continent has to offer, still find themselves in the “Warning” segment of the Index. The only country ranked as “Stable” in Africa is the tiny island state of Mauritius. at 145 in the world.

While there are precious few truly stable states across the continent, there are several countries on a significant upswing.

Multiple African states have experienced near-miraculous advancement over the last decade. According to the Fund, Seychelles, Cote d’Ivoire, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe have all shown “Strong Improvement” in the decade the Fund has been measuring state stability. During this same period, an additional 13 African states have shown “some” or “marginal” improvement.

One of the most important lessons that can be drawn for the continent from a decade of the Index is the necessarily interwoven trajectory of stability in neighboring states. Instability breeds instability. For example, of the countries occupying the six most “at-risk” slots in the Index, only Somalia does not border any of the other five.

The “Neighborhood” Theory

 The same is true for countries that are working to stabilize. Writing with regard to the decade of improvements in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the Fund’s Nate Haken notes that “effective peace-building takes a regional perspective because a state may be unitary in theory but the neighborhood plays a major role in its trajectory.”

Similarly, it is no coincidence that the two states ranked as the least fragile are Botswana and South Africa, sharing borders on the continent’s southern tip. Sharing a border with both Botswana and South Africa is Zimbabwe, a country that, while troubled, has shown “Strong Improvement,” no doubt influenced by its stable neighbors.

The “neighborhood” theory espoused by Haken would be common-sensical to any student of Zimbabwean or South African political history.

From a historical perspective, the transfer of fragility across borders makes sense. In one of the continent’s the most prominent examples, the Rwandan genocide spilled over into neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and what would become the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the tune of 2 million refugees.

Not only is the large influx of refugees one of the major factors for instability in the Index, such refugee camps become breeding grounds for extremist viewpoints and recruitment. This does not make for robust state stability.

United Nations’ Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon once famously said that “terrorism thrives where borders are the weakest.” The same is true of state instability, and unstable states with poor governance cannot police borders.

The near-miraculous improvements several African countries should not be seen as representative of the continent. While these states have improved their fortunes over the decade of the Index, the number of African countries that are now worse off is considerably higher.

Of the 14 countries that have either experienced “significant” or “critical” worsening over the past decade only two (Greece, economic collapse, and Syria, civil war) are not located on the African continent.

What the stories of these improved countries should show are that a reversal of fortunes is possible. Countries that have previously been on what seemed like an unending downward spiral have improved their stability and begun to work towards human development.

As the world looks to the African continent with hope and an “Africa Rising” narrative, these states should be looked to as examples of improving governance, a necessary first step, but they cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Just as “it takes a village” to raise a child, any peace and rebuilding efforts must look to the whole village of surrounding countries.

Andrew Friedman is a human rights attorney and consultant who works and writes on legal reform and constitutional law with an emphasis on Africa. He can be reached via email at afriedm2@gmail.com or via twitter @AndrewBFriedman.