Responsible Development: A Note on Conflict Sensitivity from USAID’s Center for Conflict and Violence Prevention

Humanitarian and development professionals operate in incredibly challenging and complex circumstances. Most countries in which USAID works exhibit a significant degree of fragility: roughly 20 percent are in acute crisis, 20 percent are either recovering from or prone to crisis, and 40 percent experience or are at risk of smaller-scale shocks and stresses such as communal violence and rampant crime. 

Even in comparatively peaceful countries, social contracts are increasingly breaking down and identity politics are on the rise. Corruption, competition over natural resources, climate change, and complex disasters exacerbate violence, instability, and conflict. Practitioners must therefore learn to program in ways that meet project goals without exacerbating problems and that, ideally, foster social cohesion, tolerance, and collaboration.

Strengthening Capacities for Peace

To deliver enduring development outcomes, not simply successful activities, USAID must ensure that all its programming—regardless of country context or development sector—builds connections and strengthens local capacities for peace. 

The purpose of this guide is to highlight how practitioners improve development outcomes using a conflict-sensitive approach. Even in times of peace, programs may achieve their intended objectives but inadvertently cause strife by benefiting one group over another or conferring goods or services in a manner that incites distrust or disputes. Conflict sensitivity ensures that donor inputs are better managed, mitigates violence and conflict, and advances peace and prosperity.

Foundations of a Conflict Sensitive Approach

Conflict sensitivity is a practice and approach that focuses on understanding explicit and implicit context dynamics so that programmers are better able to adapt and respond to complex operating environments. Conflict sensitivity acknowledges that even the best-intentioned development interventions can have negative impacts and exacerbate problems.

International development actors naturally focus on their specific sector objectives and may unintentionally neglect the interaction between their programs and the context. However, humanitarian and development professionals can use the following strategies to operationalize and mainstream conflict sensitivity:

1. Assess the interaction of conflict dynamics with USAID programming.
2. Mitigate risk and prevent conflict and violence.
3. Use collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) approaches. 
4. Set a precedent for peace. 

Used together, these strategies empower USAID staff and partners to reconsider standard development and humanitarian approaches in a framework that mitigates the potential harm of interventions and maximizes opportunities for prosperous, healthy, and resilient populations in stable and peaceful communities.