Violent conflicts are becoming more frequent and protracted. This global rise in conflict is driving record humanitarian need, blocking climate action, and preventing economic development. With most humanitarian, development and peace interventions now taking place in fragile and conflict affected settings, incorporating peacebuilding approaches is now critical to their success.
Conflict sensitivity is an important first step for policymakers, practitioners and agencies operating in FCAS to ensure that their work doesn’t exacerbate existing tensions on the ground. Factoring in local conflict dynamics is increasingly seen as an essential condition of project development. Taking this a step further, interventions are being explicitly designed to support peace-positive outcomes, like improvements in social cohesion, inclusive governance and sustainable development.
Alert’s experience working with humanitarian, climate and development finance actors has demonstrated in practice how integrating peace is vital for projects to succeed in FCAS – and essential for local communities to thrive.
Strengthening humanitarian responses
Humanitarian need related to conflict is at an unprecedented high. Humanitarian agencies are grappling with seismic challenges, largescale funding cuts and increasing risks to their safety. With growing need and restricted budgets, integrating approaches that contribute to peace can seem an ask too many. In practice, however, the realities of operating in increasingly complex conflict settings mean agencies must engage with local dynamics and explore ways to support peace and stability.
Integrating conflict sensitive approaches has immediate and tangible benefits for humanitarian action. It enhances targeted design, helping to channel limited resources to those most in need, whilst avoiding risks related to perceptions of aid bias. In Lebanon, more than one million people have been displaced following the most recent conflict, putting further strain on an already overwhelmed system. Tensions related to the emergency response between host communities and displaced people have been growing rapidly. Alert is supporting partners involved in conflict sensitive aid distribution, applying learnings from longstanding work to reduce social tensions in the education and health sectors. In Ukraine and DRC, Alert supports humanitarian partners to integrate context and conflict sensitive approaches in rapidly changing environments through research, training and accompaniment.
A peacebuilding approach can also support the sustainability and reach of humanitarian interventions. These can be designed to meet immediate needs while contributing to broader social cohesion, helping to address the underlying factors driving humanitarian crises. In northeast Nigeria, Alert partnered with humanitarian actors in response to the Boko-Haram insurgency, which had internally displaced more than two million people. The conflict created competition over scarce resources and distrust between displaced people and host communities. We supported humanitarian actors to design aid delivery to avoid reinforcing divides and set up community-based reconciliation dialogues, while training staff in conflict-sensitive programming.
Integrating approaches that support peace must not be seen as an additional extra, but as a necessary foundation.
Climate action in crises
Climate and peacebuilding agendas are increasingly being recognised as interdependent, yet programming is rarely integrated in practice. Climate change intensifies existing vulnerabilities such as resource scarcity, food insecurity, and displacement. At the same time, the difficulties of operating in conflict-affected areas often prevents effective climate mitigation efforts. There is even a risk that poorly designed climate programmes may exacerbate inequalities, aggravate grievances, or increase competition over land and water.
A key challenge is that climate actors often prioritise technical and environmental outcomes, for instance emissions reductions or climate resilient infrastructure, without paying enough attention to the political and social context. As such there is a risk that climate action can be ‘conflict blind’. Approaches can often be top-down, with limited participation from affected communities. Weak governance, power imbalances and unequal access to climate finance further risk reinforcing exclusion, particularly for women, youth, and other marginalised groups.
To respond, climate actors must move towards explicitly peace-positive climate action. This includes conducting conflict analysis, adopting flexible and participatory programming, and prioritising locally led approaches. Strengthening inclusive climate and natural resource governance and ensuring representation of marginalised groups is essential for sustainability, effectiveness and legitimacy. Partnerships with peacebuilding actors are instrumental in spotting risks and opportunities for the context and in supporting dialogue and inclusion.
A good practice example comes from Alert’s ongoing Powering Peace through Climate Action project in Kenya and Nigeria, where dialogue processes bring communities together to resolve natural resource-based conflicts and develop joint solutions for livelihoods under climate pressure. These initiatives have reduced tensions while strengthening climate resilience. Doing this in close collaboration with national level climate departments has helped build the momentum to bring these integrated climate and peace initiatives to scale. It ultimately demonstrates that climate action, when designed with peacebuilding, can deliver both environmental and peace outcomes.
Investing in peace
In the shifting global landscape, investing in peace, resilience, and reconstruction is more important than ever. Conflict-sensitive investment in inclusive growth and job creation can help break cycles of violence. It can make huge savings in losses from infrastructure damage and lost economic output.
Yet, traditional Development Finance Institution (DFI) investment models are designed for predictability, scale, and linear results. These are conditions that FCAS rarely offer. To operate effectively in the current global context, DFIs need a toolkit fit for the realities of these environments. Conflict sensitivity and peace-positive approaches are critical but under-utilised. They actively de-risk projects, strengthen legitimacy and build the trust necessary for resilience, inclusive growth, and sustainable development. They help identify consequences that standard environment, social and governance (ESG) frameworks may miss,
In practice, this means DFIs should adapt risk/return models for FCAS, fund peace-focused tools and analysis, measure peace and resilience impacts, build staff capacity, and partner with peacebuilders.
Integrating peace is vital for projects to succeed in FCAS – and essential for local communities to thrive.
One example from our experience is the Marsabit Renewable Energy Reference Group in Kenya, supported through International Alert’s Business and Human Rights project. In a context of inter-ethnic tensions, the group provided a structured space for dialogue on energy projects, amplified community voices and engaged government and private partners. They successfully advocated for expanded local electricity access, while strengthening cohesion among divided communities. For DFIs, supporting similar inclusive platforms can enhance stakeholder engagement, improve social licence, and reduce conflict risks in fragile contexts.
By building awareness of local conflict contexts, humanitarian, development and climate adaptation actors can help ensure their responses reach those most in need and avoid fuelling tensions. Applying a peace positive lens can offer more sustainable, locally led solutions that break cycles of violence.
Effective humanitarian response, successful climate adaptation and sustainable economic investment are essential for communities in FCAS to thrive. To achieve this, integrating approaches that support peace must not be seen as an additional extra, but as a necessary foundation.
