Assessing the Impact of Aid on Conflict

From Peacebuilding

Contents 1 Note 2 Purpose 3 Time 4 Participants 5 Materials 6 Process 7 Debriefing 8 Source 9 Handout: Questions for Analysing the Impact of Aid on Conflict

Note

There are several ways to use the framework here introduced in a workshop. It can be used with staff working in the same programme or at least in the same agency or context. It can also be used with a group of participants from different programmes, agencies and contexts. In the former case the framework can induce in-deep reflection on the programme and its impact on the conflict; in the latter case it can be used to introduce participants to the framework. In any case, these questions work better with reference to the participants’ concrete experiences.

Purpose

• To learn on the Do No Harm framework by using it;
• To apply the Do No Harm framework to the participants’ experiences.

Time

90 minutes, minimum. The framework can provide for several days of reflection, especially if applied with participants working on the same programme, or with the same agency or sharing the context.

Participants

Any number.

Materials

• Copies of the handout “Questions for Analysing the Impact of Aid in Conflict”;
• Flip chart papers;
• Markers;
• Papers;
• Pencils;

Process

I) Distribute copies of the handout to the participants and briefly introduce the framework (you can use the first four paragraphs in the handout to prepare a short introduction).

II) Divide participants in groups, preferably according to the programme, agency or context they work in. When this is not possible, you can ask participants to work individually.

III) Assign the task. Ask participants to apply the questions introduced in the handout to what they (the programme, the agency) do.

IV) Start work (see note above).

V) When individual or group work is finished, help participants sharing with others the insights of their reflections.

Debriefing

In addition to the questions included in the handout and arising from participants’ sharing of their insights, you can help participants focus on the actual use of the framework for reflecting on their practice. Questions you can use might include:

How do you feel?

• How do you feel about using the framework for reflecting on your programme?
• How would you feel if others would use the framework to reflect on your work?
• How do you feel about your practice after this reflection?
• How do you feel about the framework?
• How do you feel about your agency after this reflection?
• How do you feel about the decisions that you make in programming?
• How do you feel about the decisions that are made past above your head in your agency’s HQs (or by donors) and that affect your programme?

What happened?

• What happened when you applied the framework to your work?
• What potential do your programming decisions have to affect the lives of people in the given context?
• How would you assess the decision-making processes in your programme/your agency?
• What (if anything) changed in the way you see your work/programme?

What have you learned?

• What have you learned about the Do No Harm Framework?
• How this framework might be useful for you/your programme/your agency?
• What wouldn’t work from this framework for you? Why?
• What would you change to make the framework more suitable to your needs?

Source

This activity is based on a text extracted from CDA Inc., The Do No Harm Handbook, Cambridge: CDA Inc., 2004, http://www.cdainc.com/publications/dnh/do_no_harm_handbook.php pp. 14-15.

Handout: Questions for Analysing the Impact of Aid on Conflict

The following text is extracted from CDA Inc., The Do No Harm Handbook, Cambridge: CDA Inc., 2004, http://www.cdainc.com/publications/dnh/do_no_harm_handbook.php pp. 14-15.

Using the Framework: Analyzing the Impacts of an Assistance Programme on Conflict, or The Details Matter

Any assistance programme, whether a humanitarian intervention or development project, an advocacy campaign or peace-building effort, embodies a series of decisions answering a fundamental set of questions. Why have we chosen this activity with these resources in this place with these people? How did we select these beneficiaries, these resources, and these staff? Who made these decisions and how?

Every organization has a programme planning process that outlines how such decisions are to be made. However, these processes often leave the reasons behind the choices unspoken or implicit. Because each of these choices potentially has an impact on the conflict, it is necessary to make these decisions explicit and transparent.

It is important to remember that it is never a whole project that is having a negative impact. A project may itself be doing the good it set out to do, while at the same time some piece of the decision-making is feeding into and exacerbating the conflict. In these cases, the programme does not need to be stopped, it needs to be adapted.

The Do No Harm Framework captures the decision making process through seven basic questions. It is not enough, when analyzing a programme, to ask these questions once. It is necessary to ask them again and again, until the whole structure of the programme has been made explicit and clear.

The basic questions are:

Why?

• What are the needs that lead us to plan a programme in the first place?
• What do we hope to stop or change through our intervention?
• Why us? What is the value added that our organization brings to addressing this need in this place?

Where?

• Why did we choose this location? What criteria did we use?
• Why these villages and not those?
• Why this province and not that one?
• Why on this side of the front lines and not that one, or both?
• Who did we leave out and why?
• What are the other locations we have chosen that have an impact?
• Why did we rent these buildings? From who?
• Why do we drive this route?
• Why do we buy these resources here?

When?

• Why have we chosen this time to bring in our intervention? What is it about the current situation that makes now the right time for our intervention?
• Is the situation post-conflict, pre-conflict, or is the conflict still “hot”?
• Why us, now?
• How long is our project going to last?
• How will we know when our project is finished? What criteria?
• What will have changed and how will we know?
• Do we have an exit strategy?

What?

• The specific content of the resources can have an impact on the content.
• Are we bringing in food, shelter, money, training, experts, vehicles, radios, tools, etc?
• Be specific: what kind of food? What kind of shelter?
• What types of resources are appropriate to this circumstance?

With Whom?

• How did we choose the beneficiaries? What was the criteria for choosing some people over others?
• Who did we leave out and why?
• Who else benefits from our presence?
• Landlords? Drivers? Stevedores? Farmers? Hotels?

By Whom?

• Who are our staff? Are they local or expatriate? How were they selected? What were the criteria for hiring these people and are these criteria different in different places?
• Who do the criteria leave out and why?

How?

• What is the mechanism of the delivery of the assistance?
• Food-for-work or cash? Is training through lectures by outsiders or through participatory methods?
• How exactly do we do our work?
• How exactly do we act?
• Do expatriates drive to work in the morning while our local staff walk or take public transport?