The nature of today's humanitarian crisis situations is complex and blurs the traditional lines between humanitarian and development cooperation. Humanitarian emergencies are lasting longer and have become more destructive and multifaceted, reducing the traditional division between humanitarian response and long-term development. Conflicts are increasingly protracted and climate-related shocks are more intense and frequent, and the links between conflict and the environment are more common than ever. Sustainable development and durable solutions to displacement are not possible without peace. Humanitarian, development, and peace-building are not serial processes: they are all needed at the same time. This is increasingly being referred to as the Triple Nexus. Given the multiple causes of vulnerability and fragility, resilience building actions must be sustainable, multi-sector, multi-level, multi-partners and include the participation of the people affected or at risk, of communities, governments and civil society.
To reflect this understanding, the concept of a ‘humanitarian-development nexus’, or a ‘humanitarian-development-peace nexus’ has become more prominent. These concepts focus on the work needed to coherently address people’s vulnerability before, during and after crises. The nexus concept challenges the status quo of the aid system, but the idea is not new. The nexus is a continuation of long-running efforts in the humanitarian and development fields, such as ‘disaster risk reduction’; ‘linking relief rehabilitation and development’; the ‘resilience agenda’; and the embedding of conflict sensitivity across responses. Unlike previous efforts, the current nexus dialogue extends beyond a programmatic or conceptual approach. It relates to ongoing structural shifts across the aid system that are changing how aid is planned and financed. Many actors are already changing how they act and their language of working. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has made the nexus a priority and members of the Development Assistance Committee are partly changing how they fund programs. The UN and the World Bank set up the New Way of Working to deliver the nexus approach. It also has strong relevance to the Grand Bargain and the UN Development System Reform. UN agencies, many donors and multi-mandated NGOs are supportive of the approach. The broader changes to the system, and to some extent the way in which donors deliver funding, indicate that the nexus framework is more likely than previous initiatives to impact how aid is coordinated, funded and delivered.
The emphasis on a more coherent approach offers many opportunities. Meeting immediate needs at the same time as ensuring longer-term investment addressing the systemic causes of conflict and vulnerability – such as poverty, inequality and the lack of functioning accountability systems – has a better chance of reducing the impact of cyclical or recurrent shocks and stresses, and supporting the peace that is essential for development to be sustainable. The implementation of a nexus approach could provide a substantial opportunity to enhance gender justice, including through long-term support to women’s rights organizations and ensuring that women’s rights are integral to both immediate responses and longer-term outcomes. Similarly, the potential emphasis on local leadership and the development of national and local systems to accountably provide essential social services offers the opportunity for more sustainable, appropriate and transformative responses. The current dialogue includes a welcome emphasis on early warning, early action and prevention.
However, along with such opportunities, aid agencies need to be aware of potential challenges. Where long-term development goals are prioritized across the whole system, there is a risk that immediate humanitarian needs do not receive adequate responses. While humanitarian action often occurs within a political context where the state is party to a conflict and is unable or unwilling to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people and at the same time, there is greater space for donor agendas to politicize humanitarian interventions.
Prioritizing humanitarian assistance across a response at the expense of long-term development and peace-building risks failing to strengthen local systems to accountably provide essential social services, and prevent and prepare for future crises. It can also lead to ignoring the systemic causes of conflict and vulnerability, including poverty, inequality and the lack of functioning democratic systems. It can potentially even weaken existing systems by bypassing them. Similarly, wherever conflict sensitivity is not prioritized, there is a risk of exacerbating social tensions and doing harm. There is currently little consensus on what the integration of peace in program is, nor how it should be achieved. Programs must remain agile and responsive to changes in context and enable capacity-sharing and collaboration between humanitarian, development and peace actors that helps implementers to step out of their comfort zones. Using holistic analysis to inform cross-disciplinary indicators of success would incentivize work between humanitarian and development actors. Investment is needed to develop joint tools, analysis and language, and to ensure that the views of people affected by crises are integrated at every step, and local leadership comes to the fore. All of this will require flexible funding instruments and changes in program management structures.
Strengthening the humanitarian-development nexus was identified by the majority of stakeholders as a top priority at the World Humanitarian Summit, including donors, NGOs, crisis-affected states and others. The nexus could be described as working towards achieving collective outcomes that reduce need, risk and vulnerability, over multiple years, based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of humanitarian, development, and peace-building actors.
Achieving the right mix of humanitarian, development and peace approaches, and how they are integrated, is critical. A nexus approach should never be a reason not to deliver timely humanitarian assistance where needed, nor a reason to scale back development assistance.
Recognizing and responding to these changing contexts has become the new norm for many multi-mandated organizations, which are transforming themselves alongside the wider aid system. In order to truly deliver a humanitarian-development-peace nexus requires the international community to expand its engagement and thinking. We must reconsider our finance mechanisms, ways of working, the expertise needed, and how we set standards and define success. The nexus has the potential to make aid more effective and efficient. It also provides a good opportunity to work with all stakeholders towards a common goal. Efforts to put people’s experience at the center, build local capacities and ensure a holistic response to current needs and root causes are welcome. Careful attention to learning lessons, adapting, and ensuring that people’s rights and needs are forefront on our agenda is required if the nexus is to deliver the change that is needed.
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