Conflict sensitive planning and identification inevitably raise the question of conditionality. Central and local authorities that interact with the intervention may have policies or approaches that appear insensitive to conflict and risk, undermining the objectives of the intervention. As part of the planning phase, the intervening organisation may feel the need to effect changes in existing policies or practices of authorities to meet the minimal conditions required for a project or programme to succeed. Conflict-related conditions may include, for example, state willingness to support the independence of the justice system, or to pay appropriate salaries for security sector personnel.

To make the implementation of a programme conditional on the partners meeting these terms often requires a political commitment that is beyond the scope of planners. Finding allies and developing commitments from all levels of the intervening organisation will ensure that the issue of conditionality does not remain with planners, but can instead receive the attention and support of the entire organisation. The approach adopted by many organisations is to introduce the issue of initial conditions in the first stages of design, and later reflect the issue in evaluations and policy papers, in an attempt to make the dilemma more visible to political decision makers.