There are many guides, tools and checklists already available to help you adopt more conflict-sensitive approaches. Each of these is designed for a different purpose and knowing where to start can be a struggle. This page presents a few ‘top picks’ to get you started and provide you with the inspiration to adapt your own tools tailored to your organisation, programming and context.
Please do reach out to your HQ or regional offices to check whether your organisation has developed its own tools or approaches tailored to your work. If you have any questions or need ad hoc support in applying these tools, feel free to contact us.
The best all-round guide to conflict sensitivity is the ‘How to Guide to Conflict Sensitivity’ . It contains guidance on how to analyse conflict, how to recognise two-way interactions between the conflict context and interventions, assessing and building institutional commitment to conflict sensitivity, and integration of conflict sensitivity in the project cycle, in support services, and in external relations
There are conflict analysis tools designed to help you to deepen your understanding of the context. These are often structured around four main components – ‘profile’, ‘actors’, ‘conflict drivers’ and ‘dynamics’. Then, there are interaction analysis tools that deepen your understanding of the two-way interactions between an intervention and drivers of conflict. Here are some tools that cover both steps:
These tools are designed to provide a quick way of self-assessing performance against ‘good practices’ in conflict sensitivity. They are designed to identify blind spots and facilitate internal accountability, but do not provide detailed guidance on how to address these.
These tools are intended to identify strengths and weaknesses in adopting conflict-sensitive approaches. These tend to focus on organisational ‘hardware’ (i.e. policies, tools, systems), but it is important to also consider organisational ‘software’ (i.e. leadership, relationships, culture). Do also check out the CSRF learning paper on strengthening institutional capability here.
The ‘How To Guide to Conflict Sensitivity‘ referenced above also includes a capacity assessment tool. This covers institutional commitment, policies/strategies, human resources, learning/knowledge management, project cycle, support services and external relation.
Building and assessing institutional capacity to integrate conflict sensitivity.
There are many other resources available to help you integrate conflict sensitivity into your work. Check below for our honorable mentions, or get in contact if you are looking for something specific.
The Saferworld ‘Gender Analysis of Conflict Toolkit’ – which includes practical focus group and participatory appraisal exercises to understand how conflict affects people of different genders, and how gender norms and other gendered factors can be a driver of peace and conflict.
The CARE ‘Benefit-Harms Handbook’ – which includes practical tools in the form of questions to prompt reflection on project’s possible unintended impacts.
The UK Stabilisation Unit’s ‘Conflict Sensitivity Tools and Guidance’ – which includes several helpful checklists relating to proposal reviews, partner selection and M&E processes.
The UNICEF ‘Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding Programming Guide’ – which includes annexes containing specific considerations and entry points for the education, health/nutrition, WASH, child protection, gender, early child development, youth and communication sectors.
The Swiss Academy of Sciences has produced ‘Guidelines to Conflict Sensitive Research’ with clear reflection questions and recommendations relevant to analysts, researchers and evaluators.
