The nexus: Joining forces – peace-building, humanitarian assistance and development co-operation.
This issue (PDF) of the Rural 21 journal focus is on the Humantitarian-Development-Peace nexus whereby solutions to instability should bridge the gap between humanitarian assistance and development co-operation, while supporting peace-building. Recurring crises and protracted conflicts world-wide have become the new normal and are leading to fragility, insecurity and migration. Since refugees flee from their insecure region to a less fragile one, the demands in the new region are twofold – the refugees need basic services, while the host countries and communities request support for a sustainable use of natural resources in what is now a region of increased population density. One article is on the nexus policy approach that has resurfaced among global policy-makers seeking a convenient combination of humanitarian action, development and peace. The author gives an account of the different nexus approaches and trends over the last few decades and shows where their restrictions are. An article by the World Food Programme discusses how the nexus is implemented and how to address the most vulnerable in ongoing conflictive and crises situations. CARE International has been advocating for a bottum-up approach to more integration between humanitarian, development and peace activities, where analysis design and implementation are done in very close relation to its impact groups. Three contexts of this nexus approach are analysed in this article. Further, a case of Haiti shows how the dairy and seed sector, besides introducing measures to disaster risk reduction and climate mitigation and adaption, got Haiti back on track after natural disasters that caused crises and food insecurity. Further case studies on adapting to climate change and to more resilience to recurrent (food) crises such as in Mali complement this edition’s selection of articles.