Next: 3 Key steps to sensitising the planning process
2 Incorporating the conflict analysis into the assessment process
There are two ways of doing this: one is to link the conflict analysis (see Chapter 2) to the needs assessment (see Chapter 2 section 4), the other is to integrate the conflict analysis and the needs assessment into one tool. The advantages of having a stand-alone conflict analysis (linked) are that it explores the context in considerable depth, is easier to update, and avoids confusion that may be created by using one tool for two different purposes. The advantage of the second (integrated) approach is that it saves time and resources, and makes the processes of project design and conflict analysis more inter-related, as steps in the project design will raise questions regarding the context, which will in turn lead to further questions on project design. Box 1 gives examples of both approaches.
A. A two-stage process (linked)Al Quraish, a development organisation in Sri Lanka, use a two-stage process, but invert the stages so that the needs assessment process, a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), precedes the problem (conflict) tree analysis. The initial PRA maps the social welfare of the village, explores in particular the power relations by, for example, examining who benefits from government support, and the quality of people’s dwellings. The PRA is then supplemented by a two-day workshop, exploring with villagers the root causes of problems identified, using.36 a problem (conflict) tree. For instance if ‘poverty’ was the initial reason given for a child dropping out of school, the issue will be probed until a ‘problem jungle’ emerges, with multiple root reasons – frequent resettlement, destroyed identity documents, orphan status etc. B. A one-stage process (integrated)Agencies such as AHIMSA (Centre for Conflict Resolution and Peace) and Helvetas in Sri Lanka have found that emphasising stakeholder participation in the needs assessment process and making it as comprehensive as possible has reduced the likelihood of their work causing or exacerbating conflict. However, Helvetas noticed that attitudes and perceptions that affect conflicts were missing from existing appraisal tools. They decided to incorporate small complementary additions from conflict analysis tools into existing PRA methodologies to sensitise them, rather than develop a new assessment tool. A PRA might, for instance, reveal closer relationships among some actors than others. By incorporating elements of the Attitudes, Behaviours and Context Triangle they could explore why some relationships were closer and others more distant. Where relationships are noticeably distant they add a box to the PRA stating why. |
Whichever approach is adopted, the golden rule for understanding the dynamics of a problem is to involve all possible actors in the process of synthesising its key components.Stakeholder participation should not end with the identification of problems; stakeholders should also contribute to the analysis of the causes and consequences of the problems. Most agencies with a minimum degree of conflict sensitivity quote participatory processes as key to reducing conflict or even as part of the strategy for a constructive resolution of a conflict. Stakeholder-based analyses can provide a strong conflict transformation function (an optimalist approach to conflict analysis), although they are not in themselves conclusive as the information they provide is perception-based and not triangulated. (See Chapter 2 Box 10 and Chapter 3.3 Box 2).
Next: 3 Key steps to sensitising the planning process
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