Gender relations in HDP nexus operationalisation
This is the third 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 will serialised on Global Policy over the coming months.
The Humanitarian–Development–Peace (HDP) nexus emerged from the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. At the same summit, humanitarian actors identified gender equality in their programmes as another core theme. But much of the HDP nexus programming still struggles with mainstreaming gender equality. The OECD has made recommendations for linking the two, but these remain at a conceptual level, with little information on how this might work in practice.
One challenge is that the HDP nexus adds a new dimension to gender equality in humanitarian response, given the complexities of gender relations in conflict and peace. Often, women and girls are constructed as a homogeneous, vulnerable group and victims of conflict, while men are associated with violent masculinities. This narrow focus can make HDP nexus implementation ineffective and, in the worst case, can fuel conflict.
This contribution links the debates and experiences of gender mainstreaming in humanitarian and peacebuilding sectors with lessons learned and recommendations for operationalising the HDP nexus. It proposes a relational view on gender that goes beyond one-dimensional constructions of gender and places special emphasis on local understandings of gender and conflict and their power relations. It draws on three case studies from our research project “How can the HDP nexus succeed”. (1)
Gender equality from a humanitarian assistance and peacebuilding perspective
Donors and humanitarian organisations have increasingly mainstreamed gender into their activities, recognising that crises affect women, men, boys and girls differently. In practice, however, they tend to focus on women and girls, portraying them as the most vulnerable and powerless victims and as more caring than men. Assistance therefore focuses on promoting women’s rights, increasing women’s economic opportunities and access to reproductive health services, and protecting them from sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
While this support has, in many cases, improved the situation of women and girls, there is little evidence that it can foster gender equality in the long run since activities tend not to address power relations and patriarchal structures. Moreover, research has shown that some activities can even have adverse effects on gender equality. This is because participation in humanitarian or development activities can add to women’s workloads or they can affect gender relations, especially if men have been deprived of their economic activities. These unintended effects call for a greater awareness within the aid system of the complex gender relations in war and violent conflict and the impact of its interventions on gender relations.
In the field of peacebuilding, these issues have been raised for some time. The United Nations Women, Peace and Security agenda has highlighted the role of women in conflict and peacebuilding, but interventions have been criticised for a one-dimensional view of gender relations that constructs women and girls primarily as survivors of male aggression and repression. Although this sadly describes the situation of many women and girls in conflict, not all aggressors are male, and not all survivors of violence are female.
Women can be a driver of armed conflict, as combatants or supporters of the conflict, whereas men and boys can oppose war and conflict or be survivors, too. Researchers have thus promoted a relational view on gender, pointing to the constructions of masculinities, other gender constructions and the intersectionality of gendered identities and relations, like religion, age, ethnicity, or social class.
More fundamentally, much of the debate on gender and how to achieve gender equality is driven by researchers, donors, aid organisations and peacebuilders from the (so-called) Global North. Instead, an effective operationalisation of the HDP nexus needs to start from differing local perceptions and must be based on the different local realities of women and men, boys and girls in conflict-affected localities.
Understanding gender relations in violent conflict in Iraq, Mali and South Sudan
Our context and conflict analysis in Iraq, Mali and South Sudan shows how powerful gender relations co-constitute conflict. In Iraq and South Sudan, war-related SGBV is widespread. In northern Iraq, the mass enslavement, rape and sale of women and girls since 2014 is a horrific example. Importantly, SGBV is not only a consequence of war; interviews reveal how women and girls in particular face SGBV in domestic settings; in South Sudan, this is closely related to marriage and the negotiation of bride wealth. Other forms of gender-based violence, according to interviewees, relate to women’s limited access to land, for example, for South Sudanese female returnees or to legal justice, as for Yezidi women in Iraq trying to prosecute perpetrators of SGBV.
But men are also victims of war. In South Sudan, warring parties have massively mobilised young men to fight for them, and many have disappeared or died. Similarly, in Iraq, Daesh (the so-called Islamic State) has massacred thousands of men and boys. In central Mali, clashes between armed groups, whether jihadist or community self-defence, and between the Army and jihadist groups illustrate the most violent manifestations of war, in which many men have died.
War and violent conflict have also had an impact on gender relations, although our research shows that these can vary significantly from one locality to another. For instance, interviews from northern Iraq point to the changes in gender relations following the liberation of the area from Daesh. In Mosul, women have in recent years been visible in public spaces in their free time, driving cars and working in offices. In contrast, in the nearby town of Telkeyf, post-Daesh fractured community structures, a lack of trust among the population and a strong sense of insecurity have resulted in greater restrictions for women in public life than in Mosul.
In several locations in South Sudan, interviewees pointed to a change in marriage norms and noted an increasing number of relationships between young men and women outside of marriage. Many interviewees claimed that this was a direct consequence of the war, as they believe that displacement and separation from families or communities have disconnected young people from the cultural norms and customs of their communities, while at the same time, young men do not have the means to pay higher bride prices due to loss of resources. These relationships are not always based on the consent of both parties, and when they are, they often do not have the approval of the head of the family, which risks violence to escalate.
This overview illustrates the complexity of local gender relations and conflict. The following section offers lessons learned and recommendations for operationalising a locally grounded gender-responsive HDP nexus.
Gender relations in HDP nexus implementation: Lessons learned and recommendations
The HDP nexus is often implemented in conjunction with area-based or community-based resilience programming, where aid organisations integrate peace activities or work with peacebuilding organisations. Peacebuilding activities focus on communities and take gender into account, for example when women and men participate in peace committees and in community dialogues or in protection from SGBV. Although the contexts and projects analysed in our research are diverse, some lessons can be drawn about the role of gender relations in HDP nexus implementation.
Conflict analysis needs to be context-specific and gender-sensitive
War and violent conflict can vary from place to place and have different impacts on gender relations. For example, in some areas in South Sudan, but not in others, women have taken up more economic activities because men have left or died, or because it is too dangerous for men to move for fear of being recruited or killed. Moreover, men and women can play a role in peacebuilding in different locations, either through negotiation, mediation and reconciliation, or through conflict prevention strategies. In central Mali, the crisis appears to have given women a greater role in conflict prevention and resolution, notably through female peace committees, which have proved highly effective in preventing or resolving conflicts. Conflict analysis therefore needs to be context-specific and include diverse perspectives from local communities to assess how gender relations and conflict are linked.
HDP nexus operationalisation needs to be flexible to gender-specific needs and capacities
HDP nexus project operationalisation must consider the diverse needs and capacities of various gender groups across the three pillars. For example, a programme in Mali brought together women from different ethnic groups, whose relations had been quite strained, in a gardening activity. As well as providing income from the sale of produce, the market garden was a factor in strengthening social cohesion.
Multiple needs can also emerge during the project. In one project locality in South Sudan, an armed conflict erupted, involving various armed youth groups. Peacebuilding activities were combined with livelihood and psychosocial support for women and youth, including young men, to prevent their recruitment into armed groups. These examples illustrate the need to consider and constantly monitor the diverse gender-specific needs and capacities of local communities and to ensure that projects are flexible enough to adapt to changes over time.
Considering local understanding of gender relations for do-no-harm in HDP nexus programming
In all three contexts, women valued income-generating activities, but evidence from Iraq shows that this was often at the initiative of men, when they could not participate in similar activities due to gender or age restrictions and sent their wives, daughters or sisters instead. Once women had participated in these activities, they joined educational programmes and training, which had the positive side effect of allowing them to share ideas and experiences in a safe place. Often, however, when the project ended, the women returned to their isolation.
An example from Mali shows that NGO activities can also harm gender relations. The construction of latrines in one community has had the unintended side-effect of depriving women of a safe place to meet and exchange ideas, as they used to go to the forest together before the latrines were built in the community. This demonstrates the need for ongoing gender-sensitive ‘do-no-harm’ analysis and systematic use of feedback across the HDP pillars, with greater community involvement throughout the project cycle to express their own needs.
Identifying red lines for gender equality in HDP nexus implementation
Some activities in HDP nexus programming risk leading to increased gender inequality. For example, our research in South Sudan found that sometimes women leaders supported by a project would not necessarily use their position to protect women in communities, but rather to promote patriarchal norms and gender roles. Similar dilemmas emerge when local conflict mechanisms are supported: While they are widely accepted and functional for diverse conflicts in communities in South Sudan, they can also promote gender inequality and violate human rights. Sometimes, NGOs adopt a rights-based approach, but target groups may perceive this as imposing concepts on communities. It is particularly important to involve local NGOs to gain a practical understanding of the dilemmas, identify possible entry points for strengthening locally led gender equality initiatives and draw red lines in the event of human rights abuses.
Conclusions: Towards a gender-responsive HDP nexus implementation
Operationalising gender equality in the HDP nexus means adopting a relational gender approach that critically questions (Western) concepts of gender relations and incorporates local perspectives on gender and conflict and their power relations. From our own research, we have drawn four lessons and recommendations for how this can be operationalised in the HDP nexus: First, conflict analysis must be context-specific and gender-sensitive, including diverse local perspectives. Second, HDP nexus programming needs to be flexible to adapt to locally changing and gender-related needs in conflict-affected settings. Third, ‘do-no-harm’ analysis is essential to identify unintended impacts of HDP programming on gender relations and requires continuous involvement and feedback from local communities. Fourth, local NGOs and civil society actors are crucial in identifying dilemmas, entry points for local led gender equality initiatives across the three pillars and red lines where activities in one pillar risk supporting gender inequalities. In this way, HDP nexus implementation can be gender-responsive and hopefully contribute to peace.
Birgit Kemmerling, Carina Yıldırım-Schlüsing and Boubacar Haidara, Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies.
Photo by Ahmed akacha
Notes
(1) The research project at bicc (Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies) is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development. The project partners are the International Rescue Committee, Malteser international and German Welthungerhilfe. Research has been conducted in Mali, Iraq and South Sudan. In Iraq, bicc and the NGO partners halted the collaboration in October 2023 due to rejected research permits for central Iraq. Results are based on more than 320 interviews that the research team has conducted with community members, diverse community leaders and NGO staff between 2022 and 2024. The interviews in Iraq were conducted by Dr Esther Meininghaus (bicc).
