From Concept to Practice: The Rise and Uncertainty of the Triple Nexus Approach
This is the sixth chapter in 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 are being serialised on Global Policy over the coming months.
The Triple Nexus has evolved from a conceptual framework into a structured strategy pursued by major global actors. Initially focused on bridging humanitarian and development efforts, the inclusion of peacebuilding marked a significant shift, emerging as a priority from the World Humanitarian Summit and subsequent UN agendas. However, despite its promise, the practical implementation of the Triple Nexus has faced structural and political challenges, particularly regarding the peace component.
Funding gaps, shifting donor priorities, and the dominance of security-driven policies have hindered the systemic integration of peacebuilding into humanitarian and development work. While some organizations, such as Oxfam, continue to champion the Nexus approach, adapting it to climate programming and advocacy efforts, its long-term viability remains uncertain. As global conflicts intensify and civic spaces shrink, the question arises: Can the Triple Nexus withstand changing political tides, or will it be reshaped into a new paradigm of international aid and peacebuilding? To address these questions, Marina Ferrero Baselga and Rodrigo Mena had an in-depth conversation with Dr. Sylvia Brown, who brought to the conversation a wealth of knowledge and experience thinking, implementing, and evaluating triple humanitarian, peace, and development projects in different organizations and contexts.
Dear Sylvia, how do you view the evolution of the Triple Nexus, from an idea to an approach that the World Bank tried to systematise?
I think that the idea of linking humanitarian and development efforts has been around for a long time. What was new was integrating peacebuilding into the Nexus, a push that emerged from the World Humanitarian Summit and the UN Secretary-General’s agenda. The UN has since sustained this effort, particularly through the ‘sustaining peace’ agenda.
Incorporating the peace pillar has been a significant challenge. Institutional donors, for example, tend to have dedicated humanitarian aid budgets but no specific funding for peacebuilding. Then, where peace efforts are funded, they frequently translate into security-focused initiatives, as seen increasingly in the European Union.
A major issue is that no single entity has taken clear responsibility for the peace pillar -whether national governments, donor governments, or even the UN. As a result, peacebuilding efforts have been fragmented, experimental, and rarely scaled up, even when they show success. Unlike humanitarian crises, which provoke immediate public and political pressure to act, the benefits of peacebuilding are less visible.Iits success is often unnoticed, while failure is starkly apparent.
This funding gap has only worsened with the escalating effects of climate change, which has intensified humanitarian needs globally. Despite some increases in funding, it hasn’t kept pace with increasing crises. With humanitarian response plans receiving less than 50% of necessary funding, the focus has remained on emergency relief rather than preventative peacebuilding efforts. The humanitarian aid system is overstretched, yet the pressure remains on immediate crisis response rather than addressing root causes through long-term peacebuilding.
How would you define peace?
Well, I don't think there's a single answer, or that we can definitively say peace is one thing or another. It really depends on your worldview -how you define peace is shaped by your perspective.
At Oxfam, we went through a process of determining what peace means to us as an organization, drawing from our past publications and statements on the subject. We landed on a more particular understanding of peace, often called 'positive peace.' But we also integrated feminist peace, which isn’t traditionally included in the positive peace framework but is central to Oxfam’s values.
Additionally, we considered decolonial perspectives, recognizing how colonial histories and legacies of oppression shape conflict and peace today. For us, peace includes addressing and dismantling these structural injustices. That’s a fairly distinct approach - not something you’d necessarily see in many other organizations' definitions of peace.
By contrast, when you look at how governments define peace, like recent statements from the U.S., there's often a much stronger focus on security, or what some would call a 'negative peace' approach. So ultimately, it's impossible for any one person or entity to claim a single, definitive definition of peace.
This lack of a universal definition has real-world implications. It means that how we talk about peace (and even whether we can talk about it at all) depends on the context. In some cases, we have to deliberately adjust our language, sometimes even using subterfuge, to integrate peacebuilding into projects without triggering sensitivities or political resistance. The way peace is translated and understood across different cultures can fundamentally shape whether it’s accepted or rejected.
I remember when I was at Islamic Relief, particularly in a project in the Philippines, where the approach to peacebuilding had a strong spiritual dimension. They emphasized 'spiritual peace'—peace within oneself and in one’s relationship with God—as a foundation for fostering peace within communities. That was a key part of how Islamic Relief in the Philippines understood and practiced peacebuilding.
By contrast, Oxfam doesn’t incorporate spiritual peace into its framework. Our understanding of peace is shaped by different values and priorities, which highlights just how diverse and context-specific these interpretations can be.
Given the challenges donors face in visualizing and measuring peacebuilding, and a result making it difficult to fund, what motivates donors to continue financing and promoting the Triple Nexus?
I'm not sure they are interested in promoting it anymore. Some remain willing, like the German government, for example, while others seem to be moving away from it. The British government is an example, certainly under the previous administration. According to my contacts within the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), even discussing conflict sensitivity (let alone peacebuilding) was off the table. And conflict sensitivity is simply a standard practice in conflict-affected countries. Ministers at the time were unwilling to engage in conversations about addressing the effects of conflict. Now, the vision of the new administration remains unclear. For instance, the UK recently launched the Resilience Adaptation Fund to support climate resilience and adaptation projects. However, despite being a prime opportunity to apply a Nexus approach, it lacks any dedicated peacebuilding component. The only related aspect is a small allowance for social cohesion efforts, but peacebuilding itself was not meaningfully integrated into the framework.
You raise a good point, and it makes me wonder… All of this also coincides with the rise of right-wing governments across many countries. For them, peacebuilding and similar initiatives may not be a priority. So perhaps we’re entering a phase where the Nexus approach will no longer be actively promoted at the donor level.
However, there may still be momentum from below. People have heard about the Nexus, they recognize its value, and there’s a demand for it. But if it’s no longer a priority for donors, its future remains uncertain.
Exactly. Governments often tend to favor securitised approaches rather than addressing the underlying social issues and grievances on the 'softer' side of peacebuilding. However, at Oxfam, many of our country offices working in conflict-affected regions are actively trying to adopt open-access approaches because they recognize the value of peacebuilding. They really want to integrate it, but as you know, it’s not easy. Bringing these different approaches together is challenging.
Despite the difficulty, our staff sees the necessity of incorporating peacebuilding into their work. They understand that continuing with only humanitarian or development efforts without peacebuilding is counterproductive and ineffective in the long term. They’re exploring more creative ways to integrate peacebuilding into projects, even those that aren't explicitly focused on peacebuilding, like humanitarian or development initiatives. The challenge remains how to do so without donors pushing to exclude peacebuilding from the projects.
Now that decision-makers may be deprioritising it, what’s next for organisations like Oxfam? How do you plan to adapt to a new environment where this concept, which so many people were talking about, might not be as relevant anymore?
At Oxfam, we’re still pushing the Nexus approach because our country offices have made it clear that they find it relevant for their specific contexts. They want to implement it, so we continue to advocate for it. However, we're also adapting the approach to align with climate change programming, framing it as a way of working within climate adaptation. Many organisations, including Oxfam, are adjusting their programs to tap into climate finance, and the Nexus approach fits well with many climate-related initiatives we are involved in. This is part of our strategy to present it in that context.
We’ve also written a paper exploring potential pathways to peace that Oxfam could engage with and how to communicate peacebuilding efforts more effectively. We’re examining language strategies to make our peacebuilding work more appealing and less sensitive, both to donors and the communities we serve. The way peacebuilding is interpreted can vary widely depending on local contexts. For example, in Gaza, even before the war, the concept of peace was often negatively associated with capitulation to Israeli government policies. As a result, we don’t use the term 'peacebuilding' in those areas. Instead, we use alternative terms that resonate more with local communities.
This approach is similar in several other countries, where we incorporate peacebuilding into our programs through humanitarian protection work. Essentially, we're shifting our strategies to adapt to the challenges of accessing direct funding, which remains incredibly rare and difficult. Additionally, framing projects strictly as Triple Nexus initiatives is often not the most effective approach. So, we're continually adjusting to make peacebuilding more accessible and relevant in a way that fits within the evolving funding landscape.
So, it might not continue to exist in its current form but instead transition into a subset of climate change adaptation. Do you see any other areas where the Nexus approach could evolve or take shape?
Well, Oxfam integrates the Nexus approach into its advocacy work, particularly in peacebuilding. Advocacy is a major part of what Oxfam does—most recently, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and, before that, pushing for the inclusion of women in Yemen’s national peace process.
Beyond these country-specific efforts, Oxfam has also engaged in global advocacy, such as publishing work on the UN Security Council’s veto power and how it hinders peaceful conflict resolution. So, I’ve been reflecting on how we can more intentionally connect our advocacy for global peace and structural reform with our humanitarian and development work on the ground.
I don’t think we’ve fully mapped out that integration yet, but the connection is clear, especially in a place like Palestine. Our advocacy around the conflict and peace is reinforced by humanitarian efforts responding to the crisis and long-term development work supporting Palestinian farmers, particularly around land rights, which are at the heart of tensions with settlers. These are distinct projects run by different teams, but they ultimately align toward a common goal. However, Oxfam hasn’t yet developed a clear, intentional Nexus strategy for a country like Palestine, and I see potential to do more in that direction.
That connection with advocacy is interesting because it shifts the Nexus from being purely action-oriented —where it's usually focused on implementation and project design— to something more discursive, a framing that can mobilize broader change. Instead of just being about how we do things on the ground, it can evolve into a tool for shaping narratives, influencing policies, and creating momentum around systemic issues. In that sense, the Nexus could function not just as a methodology but as a strategic discourse that bridges humanitarian action, development, and peacebuilding in a way that resonates beyond individual projects.
Oxfam has been working for a long time to integrate advocacy with programming.Before the formal idea of the Peace Nexus, our focus was already on linking influencing, humanitarian, and development work. Advocacy itself is often seen as programming, as it involves supporting local civil society organizations with messaging, training, and network-building. The new element was adding peace into that structure.
Now, we’re looking at Syria and how we could start with a Nexus approach if we continue working there. One major challenge is counterterrorism legislation, which restricts engagement with groups labeled as terrorist organizations. That’s been a significant barrier. The Triple Nexus approach was supposed to be designed for these situations, but in reality, I think we've found that it's not a very flexible approach. Many organizations struggle with integrating the peace component, even though that was supposed to be its defining feature, as the part that enables us to address conflict directly. So the flexibility that we expected from the Nexus approach hasn’t really materialized.
Could you expand on your point about flexibility?
The flexibility we anticipated from the Nexus approach hasn’t really materialised. We’re still operating in a very traditional way, where we design a project upfront, set out a log frame, and then deliver it as a contract. But when the situation changes (e.g.like if we lose access to an area due to conflict, or if a new group needs to be included in the project)we still have to submit a change request to the donor. And by the time we get approval, months may have passed, and we’ve missed the window of opportunity.
A big part of the problem is Oxfam's own internal systems, which remain rigid. We haven’t been good at requesting the flexibility we need from the outset. We could, for example, set up crisis contingency budgets or build in flexibility for emerging needs like dispute resolution or additional beneficiaries. But often, we don’t write proposals that reflect that need for flexibility. It’s not just a criticism of donors; it’s also about our internal structures still being quite traditional, treating every project as a contract with a fixed path, rather than one that can adapt as circumstances evolve.
Dr. Sylvia Brown is a conflict and peacebuilding adviser at Oxfam Great Britain, where she has worked for the past three years. With 20 years of experience in international development, she has worked with NGOs, UN agencies, national institutions, and community-based organizations across Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Kenya. Previously, she was a conflict adviser at Islamic Relief, and she has also served as a consultant on the Triple Nexus approach for the United Nations country team in Myanmar. Dr. Brown has a special interest in the Triple Nexus, community-based peacebuilding, local and customary governance, forced migration, and conflict sensitivity.
Photo by Rakicevic Nenad
