The challenges of working in fragile and conflict-affected environments and preventing further conflict are of growing importance. A quarter of the world’s population lives in places affected by conflict and the number is growing year on year. Through our core services we support people and communities to foster the stability, prosperity and accountability needed to mitigate violence and transform conflict.
Fragility and Violent Conflict
The challenges of working in fragile and conflict-affected environments and preventing further conflict are of growing importance for governments, development actors and the private sector. A quarter of the world’s population lives in places affected by conflict and the number is growing year on year. In 1990, only 20% of the world’s poor lived in fragile states; by 2030, according to some estimates, the figure could be as high as 75%.
Violent conflict has surged in both scale and complexity, with resulting mortality rates returning to levels not seen in twenty years. The nature of conflict has also changed, creating complex new security threats that are beyond the capacity of any single country to manage. The corresponding humanitarian need has reached unprecedented levels, much of it concentrated in protracted crises where recurring but unpredictable conflict exists alongside severe, long-term development problems. This intensification has also triggered a global refugee crisis, adding an important new dimension to global poverty.
Narrow interventions are not sufficient to resolve conflict. Our experience in over thirty conflict-affected countries has underlined the importance of thoroughly understanding the drivers that underpin conflict and the context in which it takes place. These drivers must be identified, understood and addressed to break cycles of violence and set the conditions for long-term stability and development. Our approach draws on a set of related, but distinct concepts, mechanisms and tools that can be deployed, individually or jointly, at different points in the conflict cycle.
Drawing on our extensive FCAS experience, our research and analysis provides insight into the drivers and dynamics of conflict, the political economy in which the conflict is taking place and analyses of the structural conditions that can leave communities vulnerable to instability and violence.
Our prevention measures aim to avoid violence by identifying causes and cycles of conflict and monitoring for escalation and impending surges. Interventions may be to prevent imminent violence or involve structural prevention, to address underlying causes or escalatory factors. We have expertise in designing sensitive, sustainable and community-friendly conflict mitigation programmes. We empower communities to engage in dialogue with power holders; develop platforms for the citizen voice to be represented; and take forward alternative perspectives to decision makers.
Our mitigation services support the reduction and containment of violence used by parties to the conflict by engaging them in non-violent processes. It may be particularly important to address violence towards specific groups, both to reduce immediate harm and protect the possibility of peaceful resolution and reconciliation.
Our work aims to move belligerents from violent contestation towards cooperative, constructive resolution, by convincing parties of the possibility and value of a resolution. Looking beyond the immediate ebb and flow of conflict allows the grievances of all parties and initiatives that could help resolve those grievances to emerge.