How can aid workers in conflict areas prevent assistance from being misused to pursue political and military advantage? This report from the Collaborative for Development Action (CDA) assesses the presence and impact of the misuse of aid in projects in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, and provides lessons learned from workers in the field. Understanding the contexts of conflict environments and applying a ‘Do No Harm’ (DNH) approach improves both delivery of aid and the chances for peace.
The DNH approach helps aid practitioners avoid misuse of aid and execute context-specific programming. It includes analysis of: a) the specific context of the conflict; b) dividers (sources of tension) between groups in the conflict environment; c) connectors (shared attitudes, grievances and/or history) among groups; d) the local capacity for peace; e) the aid programme’s impact on dividers and connectors; and f) consideration and choosing of programming options.
Aid resources can be misused or manipulated in a number of ways:
- Targeting recipients can exacerbate conflict when one targeted sub-group overlaps with another which is engaged in conflict.
- The local staff hiring process can be seen as preferential.
- Working through local partners can feed into inter-group tensions when partnering organisations are partisan.
- Decisions on goods and services provided, depending on the quantity involved, can increase the potential for misuse.
- The method of aid provision can significantly affect conflict among groups.
- Aid can reinforce the illegitimate power of local authorities and their potential for abuse of access to the aid project’s goods and services.
To minimise the negative effects of aid provision, aid agencies should:
- include local representatives in the decision-making process, develop linkages among sub-groups and redress substantive exclusions from the targeted recipient list
- hire local staff from a range of sub-groups, institute a recruitment system and vet hiring policies to assess potential perceptions about local staff hiring
- partner with organisations that cross group lines, work with groups from different sides of the conflict and emphasise the project’s neutral position
- provide aid to community-owned assets and community service organisations and avoid giving aid to individually-owned entities
- include representatives of all sub-groups in programming decisions, demonstrate transparency and commitment to community
- utilise people within the local governance system who concur with the project’s objectives and seek direct input from the public to broaden the perspective of the project’s programming beyond that of the local authority.
