The Triple Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus: In Context and Everyday Perspective
This post represents the introduction to a forthcoming e-book, entitled 'The Triple Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus: In Context and Everyday Perspective', edited by Marina Ferrero Baselga and Rodrigo Mena. Chapters will serialised on Global Policy over the coming months.
Humanitarian action is traditionally seen as a means to provide immediate, life-saving assistance; an exceptional, temporary response to conflict and disasters, some might say. While this may be appropriate in certain instances, the reality is that many crises are protracted and complex. Over the decades, humanitarian action has evolved to focus not only on immediate relief but also on supporting people’s livelihoods and even preventing crises from occurring. For many, it is also increasingly about the full spectrum of human rights and the general well-being of people.
While many acute crises, such as those in fragile, conflict-affected, and vulnerable (FCV) areas like South Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, and even parts of countries like Indonesia and Colombia, invite a more traditional understanding of humanitarianism, the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), held in 2016, marked a turning point. Convened by the United Nations, it brought together governments, NGOs, and other key stakeholders to discuss ways to address humanitarian challenges and improve the effectiveness of humanitarian action.
To achieve this, the WHS called for a more coordinated, integrated approach to better link humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding actions, seeking to address the root causes of crises, enhance resilience, and promote long-term peace and stability. This approach came to be known as the Triple Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus (HDP Nexus).
The ‘triple nexus’ is the result of a long tradition of discourses around collaboration between relief and development. For more than three decades, actors have debated how to establish a smooth transition between humanitarian and development programmes, creating concepts like Linking Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development (LRRD), the “relief-to-development continuum,” and the Double Nexus between humanitarianism and development. More recently, in 2018, UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s Sustaining Peace report emphasised the need for better coordination across the UN system to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This report shifted focus from a double nexus (humanitarian-development, development-peace) to a triple nexus model, advocating conflict-sensitive, peace-focused interventions through pilot programmes.
However, reconciling the contrasting mandates, priorities, and timescales of humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding projects is challenging; it requires deliberate, whole-of-context consensus in programme design to generate collective outcomes. While the majority of actors have yet to undergo the structural shifts needed for a thorough ‘triple nexus’, several organisations and institutions have begun to operationalise the concept, including Islamic Relief, Caritas Switzerland, the European Union, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. As the ‘triple nexus’ gains prominence, understanding its influence on the field becomes vital. While the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) published a document seeking to provide some guidance on the “how to” of the HDP nexus, its operationalisation on projects and programmes is an extra step with many uncertainties and challenges.
For one, the sector must consider the intersection between vulnerability and identity; characteristics like race, gender, and class are often overlooked in the drive for rapid, large-scale interventions. Fully integrating these dimensions requires moving beyond token acknowledgements and designing policies that prioritise equitable outcomes for all. Achieving this is difficult, as systemic inequalities often persist within organisational structures and funding priorities, which can dilute the focus on marginalised groups.
Another challenge lies in furthering localisation—the push to empower local actors who understand community needs and contexts. One of the key concerns with applying the ‘triple nexus’ is its potential to facilitate further top-down donor control. When donors set requirements and expectations for the nexus’ design, local non-governmental organisations may need to alter their ways of working to follow suit—reversing recent gains in their empowerment.
Other debates concern how to integrate ‘peace’—the newer element in the nexus. Peacebuilding is political and often requires long-term commitment, which may conflict with the (supposedly) neutral nature of humanitarian aid. Other concerns relate to the nexus’ ability to deliver on its promises without doing harm to communities. Indeed, case studies have emerged where the rushed implementation of integrated projects has led to unintended negative consequences.
Furthermore, the increasing multipolarity of the world order complicates coordination efforts, as global power shifts influence priorities and reduce the predictability of international cooperation. This is compounded by shrinking budgets for international aid, as donors grapple with economic downturns and competing domestic priorities. The United Kingdom and Germany, followed by the Netherlands, have downsized their development aid budgets, sending shockwaves through the sector. Now, around the world, protracted conflicts, climate-induced crises, and the lingering impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic underscore the urgency of addressing these barriers to operationalise the Triple Nexus effectively. Without collective action to overcome these issues, the ambition of delivering holistic, sustainable responses to crises risks falling short.
Therefore, while the ‘triple nexus’ approach seeks to provide a more integrated response to complex crises, its implementation has sparked significant debates and challenges. This e-book, edited by Marina Ferrero Baselga and Rodrigo Mena, contributes to these discussions by presenting honest, first-hand accounts of the everyday unfolding of the ‘triple nexus,’ illustrating how various actors understand, operationalise, apply, and conceptualise it. Throughout its chapters, a diverse range of authors—including practitioners from various organisations, donors, and academics—will recount their experiences with the ‘triple nexus’.
Its chapters will be serialised over the coming months on Global Policy’s Opinion pages. Some will explore ‘triple nexus’ discourse from universities and think tanks (such as the Centre for Humanitarian Action). Others will discuss ‘triple nexus’ practice in Oxfam, Plan International, the Dutch Relief Alliance, Action Against Hunger and more, featuring such case studies as South Sudan, Iraq, and Mali. By bringing in a wealth of cases from different regions, the authors will balance practical discussions on the experiences of designing ‘triple nexus’ projects with theoretical explorations of its themes and meanings.
While this e-book presents an important contribution to the debate, the conversation is far from over, and many questions remain. Is the ‘triple nexus’ genuinely a new approach, or is it merely a formal recognition of practices that have long occurred at the local and everyday levels of humanitarian work? Is it simply a top-down framework driven by donor interests to enforce integration, or does it hold a deeper purpose? These questions persist, and this collection does not aim to narrow the discussion but to expand it. In doing so, it seeks not only to raise new questions but also to provide stepping stones, examples, and comparative perspectives to deepen our understanding.
Please check back soon for our first Chapter by Alexandra Wilson and Logan Cochrane on the lessons learned in South Sudan and Ethiopia. The chapter discusses three possible risks of implementing the ‘triple nexus’: (1) it might strengthen donor control over local priorities, (2) lead to harm, and (3) increase inefficiency in operations. It calls for strong guardrails to make sure the ‘triple nexus’ lives up to its potential.
Photo by Khaled Akacha
