How to guide to conflict sensitivity

Actors in conflict affected areas are increasingly realising that their inventions will have unintended impacts on the context within which they are working and hence have grown aware of the need for conflict sensitivity. This increased recognition of the importance of conflict sensitivity led to the formation of the Conflict Sensitivity Consortium in 2008, which comprises 35 humanitarian, development, peacebuilding and multimandate NGOs operating in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and the UK, who all share a commitment to being more conflict sensitive.

The Conflict Sensitivity Consortium has placed a heavy emphasis on testing practical approaches to effective conflict sensitivity, learning from experience and carefully documenting identified best practices. This approach has culminated in the production of this How to Guide to Conflict Sensitivity.

The Guide has been organised into six core chapters. Each of these chapters contains a number of sub-themes exploring ‘the what’, ‘the why’ and particularly ‘the how’ of conflict sensitivity. Key areas that will be explored include:

• Chapter 1 – Conflict analysis – provides an introduction to, and practical guidance on, conflict analysis.
• Chapter 2 – Conflict sensitivity in the programme cycle – provides guidance on how to integrate conflict sensitivity across all stages of the project cycle (needs assessment, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation).
• Chapter 3 – Key Issues for conflict sensitive programming – examines some of the most critical issues for conflict sensitive programming in depth, including targeting, procurement, relationship with communities/ government/partners, feedback/accountability and exit strategies.
• Chapter 4 – Applying conflict sensitivity in emergency responses – provides tailored guidance on conflict sensitive emergency responses.
• Chapter 5 – Assessing institutional capacity for conflict sensitivity – provides guidance on how to conduct a self-assessment to assess organisational strengths and weaknesses in terms of conflict sensitivity.
• Chapter 6 – Building institutional capacity for conflict sensitivity – provides practical guidance on how to sustainably improve organisation-wide conflict sensitivity