Programming Considerations for Humanitarian-Development-Peace Coherence: A Note for USAID's Implementing Partners

More Info

Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) coherence aims to promote complementary collaboration across humanitarian, development, and peace actors in pursuit of a common agenda. Its goal is to maximize impact and sustainability of programs across different kinds of assistance and to reduce the need for humanitarian assistance (HA) over time.

USAID’s HA aims to save lives, reduce human suffering, and reduce the physical, social, and economic impact of disasters. It is provided in such a way as to support implementers’ adherence to humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. Development assistance (DA) is focused on promoting social and economic development in the longer term; it is not necessarily provided based on humanitarian principles and has a stronger emphasis on strengthening government systems and capacity. Peace assistance refers to stand-alone programming that directly addresses the root causes of conflict and violence. HA and DA contribute to peace when possible, but the primary goal of peace assistance is to build peace.

Today, unprecedented and compounded shocks and stresses are impacting the populations USAID serves. Hunger is on the rise globally for the first time in decades, with conflict and climate change as key drivers.The climate crisis and conflict have led to increasing poverty and hunger since 2015, primarily in Africa and Asia, reversing positive trends from the decade prior. Extreme poverty is increasing globally for the first time in two decades. The latest estimate from the World Bank is that in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused up to 97 million people to become or remain in poverty globally. In 2021, these poverty impacts are expected to persist, with 98 million more people living in poverty than pre-COVID projections.

Crises such as climate change, conflict, and COVID-19 also exacerbate a range of other shocks while fueling vicious cycles of poverty, income inequality, food insecurity, malnutrition, gender and social inequality, and economic instability. Today’s risk context underscores the urgency for USAID and its partners to work together across various types of assistance, build resilience, and affirm our commitment to HDP coherence. Continuing to operate in sector silos without coordinating across types of assistance is not efficient or effective for addressing immediate needs and the root causes of our greatest development challenges. HDP coherence offers a critical step forward in moving beyond silos, prioritizing a common agenda, and enhancing coordination across types of assistance in a way that puts local communities and people (including those that are traditionally excluded) front and center. We are committed to better meeting the needs of those we serve through more coherent, inclusive, equitable and impactful humanitarian, development, and peace assistance.

This document has been developed by USAID’s Resilience Leadership Council and its Resilience Technical Working Group and it represents USAID's best, current thinking on the topic of HDP coherence. It is a working document and does not reflect official Agency policy or formal guidance. Rather, this document has two goals; first, to briefly share USAID’s core principles on HDP coherence, and second, to share programming examples and takeaways that may be helpful for USAID staff and our partners to learn from and apply themselves. This document is focused on day-to-day programming decisions and draws from consultations with USAID implementing partners. There is so much to learn in the HDP space, and USAID views this document as an important, early step in this journey.

HDP Coherence at USAID

In June 2020, USAID approved a set of internal programming considerations on HDP coherence during the COVID-19 pandemic following the onset of the COVID-19 primary health and secondary economic impacts. COVID-19 was the forcing event for a workstream that was long overdue, punctuating how crucial it was for our investments to strategically reinforce each other, as well as to center on people’s lives, needs, and priorities. USAID has made public, high-level commitments to better collaborate across the HDP nexus through efforts such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) nexus recommendation and recommendations under USAID’s 2020 COVID strategic review. Additionally, HDP is included as an important component of new policy and strategy processes under development, including the Global Food Security Strategy Refresh, the Resilience Policy, the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability, and the USAID Climate Strategy.

This document demonstrates these high-level commitments at the implementation level through key principles and everyday, practical approaches to navigating the HDP nexus. In fall 2020, a USAID working group began developing a public version of these programming considerations to share with USAID’s partner community. From September 2020 through February 2021, USAID engaged in an inclusive, consultative process with USAID implementing partners on challenges and best practices for promoting HDP coherence, as well as how USAID can better support these efforts. USAID consulted approximately 20 partners that represent multi-mandated organizations delivering a combination of humanitarian, development, and peace assistance; traditional humanitarian relief, development, and peacebuilding organizations with expertise ranging from displacement, health, education, and agriculture, to nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and local peacebuilding, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) coordination bodies as well as UN agencies. While the principles below stem from USAID’s initial internal product, examples and ideas in this text emerged from USAID’s partners and USAID practices.

To that end, these programming considerations share both what USAID has learned in its pursuit of HDP coherence as well as promising practices and ideas we have identified through our partner consultation process. By sharing USAID’s promising practices, this document demonstrates USAID's commitment to HDP coherence, offers potential models for partners to follow and build upon, and in some cases, indicates opportunities for collaboration that partners can leverage. USAID hopes these partner programming considerations can directly inspire partner approaches.

Key Principles for HDP Coherence

This document begins with and is organized around USAID core principles on HDP coherence. Under each principle are key steps USAID is taking in this area followed by illustrative examples and practical ways our partners integrate these principles in operational plans, structures, and day-to-day implementation processes. Throughout the document these practices are rolled up into clear pathways through which partners are promoting HDP coherence. The examples apply to a range of partners and crisis contexts, from multi-mandated organizations to traditional HA, DA, or peacebuilding actors, as well as in stable contexts to acute and protracted crises. The document concludes with core challenges documented through the consultation process and action steps USAID is dedicated to taking to address them.

As USAID strives for greater HDP coherence, it is their hope that implementing partners leverage these programming considerations and together help us maximize the impact of USAID investments across different kinds of assistance and to reach and benefit people in all their diversity. The Agency sees this effort as part of a learning journey that donors and partners are on together. It is the shared responsibility of USAID and its implementing partners to create the enabling conditions for these principles as well as to apply them in practice.

Key recommendations include:

• Uphold and respect humanitarian principles to ensure HA remains unhindered and effective
• Plan jointly and seek a common agenda
• Create and strengthen communication, coordination, and learning platforms across different kinds of assistance
• Strategically sequence, layer, and integrate humanitarian, development, and peace assistance where appropriate
• Promote shock-responsive programming and data-driven adaptive management
• Champion conflict integration and opportunities for enabling or building peace where possible
• Ensure programming is with, by, and through local partners and systems

Underpinning each of these key principles is USAID’s cross-cutting commitment to gender equality and inclusive development. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) are at the heart of USAID’s mission. Beyond ensuring that our resources and services are available to all without discrimination or prejudice, USAID strives to close gaps, ensure meaningful participation and leadership, address the differential needs, protect from harm, and elevate the agency of marginalized populations. This is underscored by numerous USAID and U.S. government policies and strategies that promote gender equality and inclusive development.