Clues in the Labyrinth

Peacebuilding projects are often connected to development cooperation. True, many countries marked as developing countries are currently in a conflict region. And there is another point to it: many development issues can serve as a common interest between opposing groups and so play a role in dialogue, negotiations, settlements and cooperation.

The current German policy is a good example: the ZFD program (Civil Peace Service) funded by the German Federal Government comes out of the budget for development cooperation. The ZFD program started in 1998, and it has come a long way. Several German development organisations find themselves developing and implementing peacebuilding related projects.

Now, essentially these kind of projects are a good thing. But I can’t escape the feeling that the approach misses out at some points. What concerns me here is that many of these organisations coming from a development cooperation perspective, find themselves planning, implementing and monitoring peacebuilding projects using similar tools used for development cooperation projects. My view is that peacebuilding projects may have such a different character that concepts used in development cooperation could miss the point entirely. An example is the heavy use of the concept of sustainability.

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The Do No Harm approach (DNH) was designed in the 1990s as a tool for designing, evaluating and re-designing aid and development cooperation programs in a conflict context. The approach has been designed on the basis of the experience of many NGOs in the field. Here I want to give a quick and practical overview on how it works and what questions to ask. For a more thorough approach be sure to check out Mary B. Anderson’s older publication, but nonetheless useful Do No Harm. How Aid can Support Peace – Or War and the wealth of information at the Collaborative of Development Action’s (CDA) website: www.cdainc.com. CDA has been the key player in getting this tool developed, published and implemented.

Society impacts are central, not project results

DNH is a tool looking at a project’s impact in society. Not by looking solely at the beneficiaries of a program but more looking at the wider societal impact of a program of project, especially in (post-)conflict regions.

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