Do No Harm Stories from the field

Aid in any context is not a neutral intervention. Aid, and how it is used, can build on connectors that bring children and their communities together to reduce divisions and sources of tension that lead to destructive conflict. However, it can also cause harm. In recognising this, World Vision (WV) seeks to ensure all its work reaching the most vulnerable children and their families integrates conflict sensitivity.

WV defines conflict sensitivity as our ability to understand the contexts we operate in and the interaction between our interventions and these contexts, and to act upon this understanding in order to minimise negative impacts and maximise positive impacts for the children we serve.

In this short booklet we share the stories of how four WV offices (Kenya, Indonesia, Lebanon and Afghanistan) were alerted to, dealt with, and integrated issues of conflict sensitivity in specific projects.

We hope that by publishing our experiences and learning we can contribute to a sector wide evidence base of what does and doesn’t work regarding conflict sensitive project level approaches. We are open to hearing other agencies stories and hope that this can be the start of further conversations about best practise.

[1] Bush, K (1998)