Conflict Risk Assessment
What is conflict-risk assessment, and what does it tell us?
Conflict risk assessment refers to the process of analyzing a country situation in order to assess better the conflict-related risks associated with development or humanitarian assistance. It can be used in violent conflict and post-conflict situations and it can also provide “early-warning” of a potential conflict in situations where tensions exist, but violent conflict has not broken out. Conflict risk assessment can be undertaken at a strategic level to focus on a region, country or sector, or at the Activity level.
Conflict risk assessments usually contain three components (see the Glossary for definitions of the terms used below):
- conflict analysis which analyses the structures, actors and dynamics of a conflict or potential conflict;
- an analysis of responses to the conflict, how these interact with conflict dynamics, and their impacts;
- the generation of strategies and options to make development interventions more conflict sensitive.
There are a wide variety of frameworks which have been developed by various development agencies which may be of use to NZAID staff in specific situations. This tool outlines the common elements of many of these frameworks, and discusses when they are best used.