HEA and Conflict

The members of FEG have extensive experience in analyzing the effects of conflict on livelihoods, having conducted work in Angola, the Balkans, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the DRC, northern Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Somalia, southern Sudan, Sierra Leone, the West Bank, and Zimbabwe. Because of FEG’s recognized leadership role in the area of livelihoods and conflict, FEG ‘s staff and associates were commissioned by USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation to write Livelihoods and Conflict: A Toolkit for Intervention. Understanding how violence and insecurity affect people’s daily lives and how they adapt their livelihoods in response is at the root of identifying appropriate mechanisms to drive the recovery process. Livelihoods analysis points to the social, economic and humanitarian gaps that result from conflict and guides decision makers and planners towards actions that are appropriate and suitable for the context. FEG’s livelihoods analysis can help project managers and response planners understand the social fabric within conflict-affected communities – information that is useful in the establishment of appropriate targeting, logistics and monitoring systems. Livelihoods analysis also reveals how livelihood stress, or the inability to manage or maintain livelihoods, may actually lead to conflict. Getting to the bottom of how livelihood systems operate and what causes livelihood stress can help identify the early warning indicators of livelihood deterioration so that an appropriate response can be organized before livelihoods collapse and conflict erupts. Such analysis can provide humanitarian agencies, mediators and development organizations with information vital for guiding their interventions in a way that reduces, rather than exacerbates, tensions.