New policy paper on humanitarian-development-peace nexus moves closer to publication after workshop sparks lively debate

29/06/2022

FAO held a virtual workshop today to discuss the complex relationship between conflict, food security and climate change, ahead of the release of a policy paper on the topic in August.

The workshop, organised by FAO’s Dryland Forestry team, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and CARE International, brought together practitioners, field experts and partners to discuss key themes in the upcoming policy paper, Doing No Harm while Doing Good: Climate and Conflict Sensitivity in Humanitarian Projects.

The new policy paper follows up on a previous paper, Deploying a humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach: Exploring, strengthening and reviving dryland ecosystems, released at the Food Summit in 2021. This paper evaluated 18 different projects across dryland areas highlighted the importance of conflict sensitivity, climate change monitoring and resilience, promotion of food and nutrition security and attention to vulnerable people. The new paper, Doing No Harm while Doing Good: Climate and Conflict Sensitivity in Humanitarian Project, conducts an in-depth analysis of three of those projects, showing the fragility of dryland ecosystems in humanitarian settings.

Workshop event

The event started with a presentation on the report’s key findings from the three projects operating across Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Niger and Bangladesh.

Participants divided into breakout rooms to discuss the new policy paper’s four key recommendations and the possibility of creating a more systemic way of working that can contribute to improved peace during humanitarian projects, and discuss how the report’s recommendations can be implemented in different contexts and regions.

Topics of discussion in each breakout room included how to measure the availability of natural resources in an area of conflict before starting projects, the kinds of training necessary to incorporate building actions into humanitarian interventions, possible methods to ensure sustainable cooking fuel for displaced communities and how to raise awareness of the importance of forest, trees and woodland protection amongst humanitarian actors.

The group highlighted the importance of data collection to advocate for environmental considerations – without which, there will be no transformation - and discussed the need for energy to be incorporated as a main component of food security interventions in an integrated, holistic approach. Discussion also turned to the importance of ensuring that data gathered before emergency interventions is reliable, as well as that projects are continuously assessed, even in emergency situations. Baseline assessments must assess conflict risks and be coordinated between all actors, including local community opinions, and protecting natural resources is a necessity, with cross-sectoral coordination the key to doing so.

FAO’s work on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus

FAO in collaboration with CGIAR and CARE, has been working in partnership to improve the understanding of the links between climate change and various kinds of conflict. Today’s validation workshop contributed to a better understanding of the challenges, opportunities and deepen the reflection on the link between the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, climate and conflict sensitivity in humanitarian projects, and validated the findings of the upcoming Doing No Harm while Doing Good: Climate and Conflict Sensitivity in Humanitarian Projects policy paper. The paper is due for release on World Humanitarian Day on August 19, 2022.

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