Do No Harm and conflict sensitivity in practice

What do Do No Harm and conflict sensitivity mean?

CDA Collaborative Learning, which developed the Do No Harm framework, says that conflict sensitivity recognises that aid, whether development, peacebuilding or humanitarian, has the potential to support either conflict or peace. CDA states that conflict sensitivity does not require every organisation to focus on conflict and peace issues. It does insist that all organisations consider the unintended consequences of their programmes on relationships between groups of people, and act to address them.

CDA describes Do No Harm as a leading tool for applying conflict sensitivity. The framework came from the experience of aid workers, donors and communities, and rests on a basic lesson: when an intervention of any kind enters a context, it becomes part of that context.

What are dividers and connectors?

Do No Harm uses two simple ideas to analyse relationships between groups.

• Dividers are factors that create division or tension.
• Connectors are factors that pull groups together or help them coexist constructively.

CDA notes that in intense conflict, connectors can be hard to see, yet they always exist. A caution from the GSDRC summary of the framework: do not label things too quickly. Religion, for example, is often called a divider, but the question is how people use it to cause divisions. Infrastructure may be seen as a connector, but can be used in ways that cause tension.

These are illustrations. Real analysis should come from people who live in the area.

How do I apply it? The seven-step process

CDA's participant manual lists seven steps. In plain words:

1. Understand the context of conflict and tension.
2. Analyse dividers and sources of tension.
3. Analyse connectors and local capacities for peace.
4. Understand the details of your intervention.
5. Analyse the impact of those details on dividers and connectors, through your organisation's actions and your staff's behaviour.
6. Consider options to change the details if the impact is negative.
7. Test the options and redesign.

The GSDRC summary adds that the analysis should be done with local partners and regularly updated during implementation, and that if assistance worsens divisions, you should rethink how you provide it.

Which details create harm?

CDA's manual says conflict sensitivity covers details of programmes, such as how participants are selected and the sites and timings of activities. It also covers operations, such as hiring, procurement and security, and policies, such as the criteria you set. Ask these questions about each detail:

• Targeting: Who gets help and who does not? Is the reason clear to everyone?
• Location: Do people from all groups feel safe reaching the site?
• Timing: Does the schedule favour one group?
• Staffing: Does your team reflect the communities, and do staff behave fairly?
• Procurement: Do contracts favour one supplier group?
• Security arrangements: Who protects the site, and how does that look to communities?

See our guides on targeting criteria and stakeholder analysis for related tools.

What do practical changes look like?

CDA says there are always options, and that small changes to programme details are often possible without harming the organisation's mission. Examples:

• Publish selection criteria in plain language and hold open community meetings before lists are final.
• Form a mixed committee that includes people from different groups.
• Use more than one distribution site to reduce travel across sensitive areas.
• Hire staff from different communities and train them on behaving impartially.
• Offer a complaints channel that anyone can use, and track complaints by group.

GSDRC cautions that externally created connectors have been ineffective and can increase tension. Strengthen the connectors that already exist, such as markets, local associations or shared religious events, rather than inventing new ones.

How do I keep it going?

Build conflict sensitivity into the project cycle. Add a short context check to your inception, a tension question to each monitoring visit, and a review at every quarterly meeting. Record decisions made because of the analysis. Keep the analysis safe: in sensitive settings, do not share names or detailed security information in widely circulated documents.

Teams in Myanmar often work across communities and with different partners. Agree one common set of questions, and make sure local staff feel safe sharing their views. Do not take sides in your analysis; describe what you see and how people explain it.

How EMPO can help

EMPO is a reliable, Myanmar-based training and consultancy provider and one of the country's leading names in practical NGO training, with 1,200+ people trained and 15 partner organisations. Conflict Sensitivity & Do No Harm is one of our training topics, delivered online or in person, in English and Burmese. See our services or contact us.

Sources

• Do No Harm — CDA Collaborative Learning
• Do No Harm Workshop participant manual — CDA Collaborative Learning, 2016
• Do no harm — GSDRC