Together We Stand

[ 37 ] sustainability of programs — in this case, food security. We also sought to examine the relationship between conflict reduction and resilience. More specifically, we wanted to answer two questions: do stronger relationships between traditionally conflicting groups better enable communities to prepare for and recover from shocks and stresses? And if influential leaders are better equipped to handle conflict, will people become more able to access the resources they need when these shocks occur? The answer to both was yes. We found that by thinking of resilience through the lens of peace building, we better supported food security goals. Where conflict management and peacebuilding activities had taken hold, food security gains were more sustainable and communities were able to graduate more swiftly and sustainably off of emergency aid. We know that natural disasters and economic shocks seriously affect household food security; now we also have evidence that shows that when we can mitigate the impacts of these shocks by strengthening community relations, people are more secure and able to access the resources they need in a time of crisis. What we have learned from these case studies is that when we focus on reducing conflict in all of our programming, we get closer to addressing the root causes of a crisis. And when we hold community and governmental leaders accountable for their roles in it, we get even closer to a solution. It seems natural, especially in countries where lifesaving needs are so urgent and immense, to wait until the ‘emergency phase’ of a crisis ends before we consider community relations and histories of grievance. After all, communities always have their own approaches to resolving conflicts, at some level, in their own ways. But research and experience show us that these local conflict systems can erode quickly as crises drag on. People get exhausted. Tensions fester. Grievances pile up. If humanitarian actors wait until an emergency is classified as ‘under control’ to focus on the conflict beneath it, we risk compounding and extending the crisis. Humanitarian relief is an immediate and necessary step within an emergency, but we cannot wait until that phase is over to begin addressing the violent tension at its core. This can feel counterintuitive, particularly because conflict reduction programs can take a long time. Building peace requires patience. We had to accept not seeing many results during the first 10 months of our programing in the CAR; these commu- nities needed time to process fear and grief before they were willing to engage in peacebuilding. If we had pressured them to repair those relationships before they were ready, we could have made the conflict worse. Fortunately, flexible funding from the United States Agency for International Devlopment’s Complex Crisis Fund supported this. Few institutional donor mechanisms, however, would have been as flexible or patient. These situations also require us to think more broadly about the wide spectrum of problems violence can exacerbate. The Image: Jenny Bussey Vaughan We can have greater impact by strengthening community relations and equipping leaders to promote non-violence when crises occur T ogether W e S tand