Because climate, peace, and security are closely linked (see Unit 2), it is important for environmental initiatives to be conflict-sensitive, and for peacebuilding efforts to be climate-sensitive.
Conflict sensitivity involves (1) a thorough understanding of the sociopolitical context in which a project is operating, with particular attention to conflict dynamics, and (2) the adoption of a 'do-no-harm' approach, ensuring that activities do not exacerbate pre-existing grievances or inadvertently create inequalities, but instead contribute to an inclusive and sustainable peace.
As highlighted in the Future of Environmental Peacebuilding White Paper: FLAG FOR SILJA - ARE YOU HAPPY FOR US TO CITE THIS NON-UNEP SOURCE?
Conflict-affected or otherwise fragile settings present unique operating challenges: they are typically volatile, marked by complex social cleavages, and in some situations, physically unsafe. To ensure the success, sustainability, and safety of interventions in these contexts, practitioners and their sponsoring institutions must understand the complex dynamics and manage the risks associated with their work. Employing a conflict-sensitive approach to programming does this by seeking to ensure that activities—whether they be conservation, humanitarian, peacebuilding, or of another nature—do not exacerbate or create conflicts but contribute to conditions for peace. For environmental peacebuilding, the importance of conflict sensitivity stems from the recognition that interventions involving decisions about who can use natural resources and for what purposes, made in contexts of conflict, can and often do result in increased grievances and tensions. With conflict risks minimized through a participatory and conflict-sensitive approach, programme planning and implementation can identify opportunities to build peace alongside sustainable, positive environmental outcomes...
Practitioners should start by developing a contextual understanding of the conflict. Conflict-sensitive interventions often begin with a conflict analysis, whereby practitioners gather information on the nature, causes, actors, and dynamics of local conflicts alongside other stakeholders. Working with stakeholders, they can then identify entry points for conflict risk reduction and peacebuilding, including making more informed decisions on project investments and partnerships, adapting benefit distribution mechanisms, incorporating lessons learned from similar settings or past interventions, and designing localized dispute resolution mechanisms...
Once practitioners have built fluency with local conflict dynamics, they can proceed to design their projects around this understanding. Practitioners can use a variety of strategies...to mitigate risks and maximize peacebuilding outcomes. At this stage, practitioners can also benefit from building flexibility into their implementation plans, M&E strategies, and budgets. By preparing contingency scenarios and setting aside emergency funding, practitioners anticipate volatility and minimize conflict-related impacts to their work.
Meaningful and inclusive participation is one of the most effective tools in conflict sensitivity. Including a diverse range of individuals, groups, and organisations in the entirety of the project cycle will help identify and avoid potential issues, while the relationship-building that takes place during collaboration will help navigate and mitigate any conflict that does arise.
The Toolbox on Addressing Climate-related Security Risks: Conflict Sensitivity for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihoods includes question checklists to help you think about whether you've adequately incorporated conflict sensitivity and inclusion in your processes. Not all of these questions will be relevant to every project, but they provide entry points for discussion and review. The concepts, tools, and facilitation techniques in this Training Package are designed to help ensure you and the communities you collaborate with feel equipped to take on a conflict-sensitive approach.
Consider conflict sensitivity by asking:
Has a conflict analysis been conducted (at the local and national level)? Does it include an assessment of underlying conflict factors and power dynamics as well as a stakeholder analysis? How has the design of the project been informed by this analysis?
Have you considered whether and how project activities could make conflict worse, or spark conflict within or between communities? If so, how will risks be managed and monitored?
Have you considered how your project would respond if there were to be an increase in conflict within or close to the project sites?
Have you identified specific challenges faced by men and women, young people, boys and girls?
Have you identified any underlying values and attitudes relating to gender that may be responsible for driving gender inequalities? How might these affect your project, and how might your project affect these values and attitudes?
How have the project beneficiaries and partners been selected? Has this been informed by the conflict analysis (e.g., accounting for any divisions along ethnic, political or social lines)? Were clear criteria for participant selection developed with the local communities (including both direct beneficiaries and surrounding communities)?
Are communities involved in decision-making and planning around the programme design, implementation and monitoring? What feedback and accountability mechanisms have been built into the programme implementation plans?
Does your M&E framework reflect the ways in which the project interacts with conflict dynamics? Does it capture the effects that the project will have on conflict, and impacts that the conflict dynamics could have on the intervention?
Do budgets include provision for updating the conflict analysis and building capacity of staff, partners or community members in conflict and gender sensitivity?
Consider inclusivity by asking:
Have you conducted a gender and social inclusion analysis?
How do different identity markers and related power dynamics shape or influence the ways in which people are included or excluded from decision-making in community/region (e.g. gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship, age, caste, ability)?
Have you considered the daily and seasonal schedules of different groups of women, men, girls, and boys, and designed your project interventions in a way that enables the inclusion of all groups (e.g. setting appropriate meeting times)?
Have you considered community norms that may exclude certain groups from full participation in project activities (e.g. taboos for women or men, childcare needs, time availability)?
Have you considered who the most marginalised women, girls, men and boys in the community are and why?
What social and economic programmes are available to different groups in the community?
Who does and does not have access or control over productive resources and why?
Which groups have the lowest and the highest levels of public representation and why?
What laws, policies and organisational practices limit the opportunities of different groups?
What opportunities facilitate the advancement of different groups?
What initiatives would address the needs of the most marginalised or discriminated groups in society?
Remember that conflict sensitivity and inclusion, just like participation, require additional time and resources - but they will make interventions more impactful and long-lasting, and will help achieve the fundamental goal of sustainable peace.
