Side Event: 12.00 – 13.30, Wednesday September 30th
Room: Vivace 5
This event addresses the priorities and approaches for ensuring that programs on natural resource governance and rights issues are ‘conflict sensitive.’ Experience shows that many well-intentioned projects in fragile or conflict prone areas in practice add to risks of violent conflict or insecurity. This is a particular risk for contested issue areas such as land and natural resource rights and governance. Yet, many otherwise good organizations working in this area do not yet have sufficient awareness, policies, capacities, and systems to ensure adequate conflict sensitivity.
In this event, two international experts on conflict sensitivity with experience in natural resource governance and rights issues will present: the risks of doing unintentional harm; the key concepts, aims and principles of ensuring conflict sensitive programs; and the guidelines and systems that need to be in place to achieve this. They will introduce what needs to be done to ensure conflict sensitivity in program design and program implementation as a basis for further plenary discussion. This event is sponsored by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and organized by experts from Sida’s Helpdesk on Human Security in consultation with RRI and ILC.
The two speakers are: Professor Owen Greene, Coordinator of the Sida Helpdesk on Human Security and Professor of International Security and Development at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK; and Hesta Groenewald, Sida Helpdesk and Senior Advisor (previously Programme Manager for East Africa) at the NGO Saferworld. Both have more than 15 years of experience working on issues of conflict sensitivity and on design, implementation, and review of policies and programs in fragile and conflict-affected states.
Organizer: Sida Helpdesk on Human Security
* This side event will be held in English only.
