Conflict and peace

Fighting poverty in a war zone is a complex task.  Conflict undermines long-term development programmes, ignites emergencies and destroys basic infrastructure, like roads and water pipes. But insensitive development projects can also trigger or intensify conflict, and waste opportunities for peace.

Many of the countries we work in are either in the grip of conflict, have only fragile peace or are made vulnerable by wars in their regions. 

We work to make our projects ‘conflict sensitive’ – which means training and helping our staff and partners to avoid unintentionally contributing to conflict and to build peace where possible. We work to bring people together to start, and support, peace-building projects.

We also give a voice to those made most vulnerable by conflict; ensuring that civilians caught in war zones have a safe place to go for help, and that they have crucial food and shelter. Negotiating access – known as ‘humanitarian space’ – to provide aid to those civilians caught up in war zones is very complex and risk-laden.

Our advocacy focuses on:

• Aid policy: influencing the UN-led humanitarian reform process, as well as reconstruction and state-building policies
• Civil-military relations: protecting humanitarian space so that we, and other aid agencies, can help those in conflict zones
  

In Afghanistan, Coalition forces giving aid to the victims of conflict in order to win ‘hearts and minds’ blurs the line between our work and the conflict. This directly weakens the ability of agencies like CARE to operate safely and effectively. It undermines our humanitarian space, and makes aid political, making us into a target for insurgents. It also erodes our independence and ability to assist communities on different sides of the conflict.