Working in Fragile States: Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding with Impact

December 3, 2012

9:30am-12:30pm

1825 I Street NW, 12th Floor, Washington DC

RSVP with Betsy Deas (bdeas@care.org) by 28 November

Violent Conflict and 'situations of fragility' represent significant challenges for aid effectiveness. Applying traditional development approaches in an unchanged fashion in such contexts simply does not work. As is now often pointed out, no low income fragile or conflict-affected country has yet to achieve a single Millennium Development Goal. CARE invites you to a morning to discuss how NGOs and donors could be working more effectively in their peacebuilding, development and humanitarian responses in fragile states. First looking at conflict sensitivity and second examining how using theories of change in project design, monitoring and evaluation can improve the results of peacebuilding and other social mobilization programming. Two sessions will offer a platform for discussion, inter-agency learning, and the distribution of two new guides to the topics launched this year. Please feel free to come to one or boths essions, or to follow online via WebEx (for the URL, please email Betsy Deas bdeas@care.org). Refreshments will be served in the interval.

Speakers include: 

• Rachel Goldwyn, CARE International UK
• Jonathan White, Search for Common Ground
• Marshall Wallace, CDA Inc.
• John Filson, 3P Human Security/Alliance for Peacebuilding

Session 1 9:30am-10:30am: 'How to Guide' to Conflict Sensitivity

Humanitarian and development aid can have unintended interactions with conflict - both to exacerbate or mitigate violence or the potential for violence. 

Three years of work by a 35 agency conflict sensitivity consortium in Sierra Leone, Kenya, Sri Lanka and the UK has led to a practical 'How to Guide', detailing steps and tools that agencies can use to improve the conflict sensitivity of their work in emergencies, in longer development projects and at an institutional level. This hour will be an opportunity to discuss practical examples and recommendations contained in the publication, and reflect on next steps in the sector's efforts to integrate conflict sensitivity in policy and practice in humanitarian and development settings.

Session 2 11:00am - 12:30pm: Defining Theories of Change Towards Peace; Peacebuilding with Impact

Donor interest in how to achieve development outcomes in fragile environments is high, as is the focus on results and impact. In an effort to learn from peacebuilding interventions and design stronger programs in the future, CARE International UK and International Alert have produced a report - "Peacebuilding with Impact: Defining Theories of Change Towards Peace", capturing lessons learnt from a two year project on peacebuilding design, monitoring and evaluation which has included INGOs, local civil society and government agencies in Nepal, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A roundtable discussion will explore the operational, policy and funding implications arising from theory-based approaches for NGOs, CSOs, government and donor organizations.