This research briefing identifies how frontline workers delivering health, education, and social protection services in fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS) can be better supported. It synthesises evidence from six major research programmes that undertook studies across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
The briefing’s core message is that resilient services depend on resilient frontline workforces, and that support for these workers during fragility and conflict must go beyond short-term incentives or fragmented projects. This review’s conclusion is that policymakers, donors, and practitioners need to take a more systemic, long-term and gender-transformative approach to supporting frontline workers if they want service delivery systems in FCAS to endure and strengthen more ambitious accountability and stability goals.
The briefing also shows that evidence remains uneven and quite limited. There is emerging strong qualitative insight into recurrent problems and promising practices, but there is much more limited systematic evaluation of which support interventions for frontline workers are the most effective, affordable, and sustainable over time in different places and settings.
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