What Conflict-Sensitive Programming Actually Means in Practice

Every programme proposal written for a fragile or conflict-affected context includes the words "conflict-sensitive" somewhere in the first three pages. It appears in log frames, results frameworks, donor guidelines, and organisational values statements. It has become, in the language of international development, a given — something programmes claim rather than demonstrate.

This is a problem. Not because the concept is wrong — it is not. It is because the gap between claiming conflict sensitivity and practising it is precisely where programmes do their most unintentional harm.

The core definition has been in circulation since at least 2004. According to the Saferworld and International Alert Resource Pack — still one of the sector's foundational references — conflict sensitivity means systematically taking into account both the positive and negative impact of interventions on conflict and peace dynamics, and conversely, the impact of those dynamics on the interventions themselves (Saferworld / International Alert, 2004). That definition is not complicated. The sector has had over two decades to operationalise it. In too many programmes, it has not.

As Schmeidl, Ware, and Alberti noted in their 2025 Routledge volume on conflict sensitivity in development and peacebuilding practice: despite the widespread acceptance of conflict sensitivity, there has been a surprising lack of critical discussion and evaluation of the framework and its application (Schmeidl, Ware & Alberti, 2025). That absence is not accidental. Critical evaluation would require programmes to measure not only what they achieved — but what they disrupted. Most donor reporting frameworks are not designed to capture that.

The UN System Staff College describes conflict-sensitive programming as a minimum requirement for working in conflict — not an advanced methodology (UNSSC). And yet the gap between that minimum requirement and what programmes actually deliver remains wide. Recent analysis of UNICEF's implementation of its own conflict sensitivity framework found that practical application often falls short due to fragmented methodologies and uneven adoption — and that while participatory approaches are promoted in policy, implementation frequently prioritises top-down processes that sideline local perspectives (Tandfonline / Development in Practice, 2025).

What does genuine conflict sensitivity look like in practice? It starts before the log frame. It starts with a political economy analysis that is honest about who holds power, who has been dispossessed of it, and what the intervention will change in that distribution. It asks not only what the programme intends to do — but what it will disrupt, whose interests it will threaten, and what second-order effects it will produce in communities that did not ask for it.

It means that beneficiary selection is not a procurement exercise. In post-conflict and displacement contexts, who receives assistance and who does not is itself a political act. Prioritising one community, one neighbourhood, or one demographic over another in a divided context can entrench grievances faster than the programme can build trust. The communities most harmed by poorly sequenced humanitarian assistance are rarely the ones writing the lessons-learned reports afterwards.

Conflict sensitivity in practice also means that inclusion is not a gender marker in a results framework. It is a question of who is in the room when decisions are made — about priorities, about resource allocation, about what recovery means. As the UNICEF Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding Guide identifies, the theory of change must be closely informed by conflict analysis — and without that grounding, the likelihood of doing harm, or being inefficient or ineffective, substantially increases (UNICEF, 2016). Returnees, internally displaced persons, women, and youth are not stakeholders to be consulted at the design phase and then managed through implementation. They are the people whose cooperation determines whether the programme holds together or falls apart when the implementers leave.

The test I apply in practice is simple: could this programme, as designed, make things worse for a specific group in this context? If the answer requires more than thirty seconds of thought, the conflict analysis has not been done properly. If the answer is uncomfortable, that discomfort is the beginning of real conflict-sensitive programming — not the end of the conversation.

The term will not become more honest by repeating it. It becomes honest when the people writing the proposals have actually sat in the communities those proposals are supposed to serve.

Sources

• Saferworld / International Alert — Conflict-Sensitive Approaches to Development, Humanitarian Assistance and Peacebuilding: A Resource Pack, 2004 saferworld-global.org
• Schmeidl, S., Ware, A. & Alberti, C. (Eds.) — Conflict Sensitivity in Development, Humanitarian & Peacebuilding Practice: Trends and Challenges, Routledge, 2025 taylorfrancis.com
• UN System Staff College — Conflict-Sensitive Approaches to Programming unssc.org
• UNICEF — Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding Programming Guide, 2016 unicef.org
• Integrating Peacebuilding into the Triple Nexus: Insights from UNICEF's Dual Mandate — Development in Practice / Tandfonline, August 2025 tandfonline.com
• UN Good Practice Note — Conflict Sensitivity, Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace unsdg.un.org

Diana Khayyata is the founder of Levantina Consulting, with 14 years of field experience in governance, social cohesion, and programme design across the MENA region.

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