The Difficulty in ‘Doing no Harm’
Community network members are briefed on collecting security information and how to provide it to SFCG (photo: Brett Morton).
By Charles Holmquist
In December 2010, the former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, Hilde Johnson, made a recommendation to the United Nations executive committee that conflict sensitivity be integrated into all UN development projects and stabilization initiatives. One project that includes a sensitivity component is the UNICEF-funded Program of Expanded Assistance to Returnees Plus (PEAR +).
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) two NGOs are implementing PEAR+, The Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVSI) and Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI). They build schools, wells, and health centers and they raise awareness in the communities on education, healthcare, and children’s rights.
SFCG in DRC has been asked to train the staff of the implementing NGOs to become more sensitive to conflict. Conflicts sometimes can be triggered by aid projects such as PEAR+ because they may change the community by favoring certain community members. This is especially true when certain community members are assigned a special role and form a committee. The committees for the PEAR+ have been formed to assist the implementing NGOs be continuously present in the respective communities. Another challenge the implementing NGOs face is that the communities sometimes feel being lectured or reprimanded on issues such as water, sanitation, hygiene practice, education, and child abuse.
SFCG has started to assess and systematically gather information about conflict arising from PEAR+. For example, SFCG has been informed that when committee members confront parents who abuse their children, the parents often respond with hostility, and insist that it is up to them how they treat their children. Other incidents SFCG has heard of, are a father who married off his underage daughter to settle his debts, or a mother who severely beat her child for stealing some fish but the response of the parents when confronted by committee members has been, “It is my child, not yours!”
Committee members proudly display their committee t-shirts
These feelings of resentment are further aggravated because committee members have privileges, as they are for example being provided with T-shirts. The clothing is distributed to them in order to increase their visibility and foster a sense of duty and responsibility in their roles. Other benefits come from participating in focus groups: they receive refreshments or are paid a small stipend to compensate transportation or missing work. In economically deprived areas, these seemingly small benefits may sometimes cause jealousy on the part of non-committee members and create tensions as a direct result of the PEAR+.
Similar jealousy and conflict may arise on a larger scale when a school is built. Neighboring communities often complain of an exodus of students and teachers to the new school, and are upset that their own older schools have not been refurbished or replaced
Community network members choose focal points to report on the security situation in their area to SFCG (Brett Morton)
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These examples illustrate how good intentions of helping some can easily lead to others feeling overlooked. In order to mitigate these reactions, SFCG uses different approaches: we assess conflict dynamics in the communities where PEAR+ is being implemented so that the implementing NGOs can tailor their projects accordingly.
SFCG is also developing media partnerships to broadcast SFCG radio programs in affected areas, organizing solidarity activities between disputing groups, and enlisting participatory theatre troupes to perform in conflict prone areas.
The actors of the participatory theatre play out a common conflict, such as the kind between committees and communities, to the point of open hostility. Once this pressure point is reached, the actors stop the scene and ask the audience to provide their opinions on what they have seen. Furthermore, the audience is asked to offer possible nonviolent solutions to the conflict. These performances, playing on the storytelling traditions of the region, draw large crowds and allow communities to discuss their concerns in a peaceful setting.
Good intentions such as the desire to provide better education and healthcare can inadvertently cause harm. With our work at SFCG we help foreign NGOs to implement their projects with increased conflict sensitivity and we engage locals through participatory theater and media initiatives to take ownership of the conflicts and find their own solutions.
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Charles Holmquist holds a Bachelor’s degree in Politics and Philosophy and a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Manchester in England. He has interned with SFCG in Washington and is currently interning in our Bukavu (DRC) office. He has worked on evaluations of SFCG’s sensitization work with the Congolese military, and in assessing the security situation in the eastern DRC for the UNICEF funded PEAR + (Programme of Expanded Assistance to Returnees) project.
