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This paper examines debates relating to international aid, civil society, and natural resource conflicts, through a case study of conflict sensitivity programming in Cambodia. The paper highlights the value of confrontational activism, yet the practice of conflict sensitivity can dissuade such activism. Embedded in the country's history and politics, the paper analyses the conflict sensitivity work of an international non-government organisation, revealing significant community-level success, including women's empowerment, but limitations in addressing systemic drivers of conflict. The case study also reveals how the application of conflict sensitivity contributed towards conflict and risk avoidance. In a global context of prevalent natural resource conflicts and related violence, this paper calls for critical reflection on the practice of conflict sensitivity, which continues to gain popularity globally. For development institutions and practitioners, conflict sensitivity has extensive value, but it must be implemented in ways that do not inadvertently dissuade more emancipatory civil society activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The links between climate change, fragility, and conflict have received growing attention over the past decade. Yet, the theory and analysis underlying conflict-sensitive practice has not figured significantly in these developments, thus limiting effective action and policy. While there is pressing need for climate adaptation efforts, climate change-related disaster response, and low-carbon development to leverage local capacities for peace and avoid exacerbating conflict dynamics, existing conflict sensitivity frameworks (a) lack sufficient emphasis on action and (b) struggle to incorporate the complex, systemic interactions among ecologies, societal conflict, and aid, or other efforts to address fragility. This paper draws on complexity-informed approaches that more directly and practically integrate socio-ecological systems thinking into urgently needed conflict-informed action. Specifically, the paper establishes the basis for integrating CDA Collaborative Learning Projects' systems-based Reflecting on Peace Practice (RPP) approach and Do No Harm (DNH) framework for accountable analysis and action amidst conflict, and reframing the key analytical categories of Connectors and Dividers to Resilience and Vulnerabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Palestine has been the subject and recipient of significant humanitarian and development aid. This article critiques the humanitarian and developmental assistance provided by major donors in Palestine, with a particular focus on the E-1 area in the central West Bank, highlighting its depoliticisation and the misdiagnosis of the context of Palestine as a post-conflict situation, and showing how aid has had an adverse effect on Palestinians. This article, drawing on the Do No Harm approach, argues that aid has not only been ineffective in achieving its stated goals, but has also harmed Palestinians by entrenching the occupation and advancing settler colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this viewpoint, Dr Mary B. Anderson, the founder of the "Do No Harm" approach in 1993, reflects on the approach and its application as a way of suggesting lessons and challenges for the present and the future. Fundamentally, she argues that "Do No Harm" is about accountability to the people we intend to help and asking the difficult questions that enhance the aid sector to learn over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores recent research on uses of Do No Harm within faith communities. Drawing on case studies from Kenya, El Salvador, and the Philippines, the authors argue that there is an important nexus among conflict sensitivity, personal growth, and spiritual (trans)formation. The research focuses particularly on World Vision's Do No Harm for Faith Groups (DNH4FG), a resource for introducing Do No Harm to faith actors within inter- and intra-religious settings. The authors conclude that the integration of DNH practice has significant potential to deepen and expand the work of interfaith cooperation and social action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]