This story is part of Cooperation Canada’s Triple Nexus Spotlight Series  

In 2020 Development and Peace – Caritas Canada, in partnership with Trócaire, initiated a three-year project to support vulnerable communities, particularly women, in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and host communities. The project, titled ‘Improving Food Security for Vulnerable IDP and Host Communities,’ aimed to establish sustainable food systems through agroecology. It focused on empowering women by equipping them with farm input, including access to land, and promoting resilient alternative livelihood opportunities, as well as community-based natural resource management. Over 2,118 (1,066 females and 1,052 males) from Luuq District in Gedo Region of Southern Somalia were reached through the intervention. 

Project beneficiary harvesting on a farm provided to her to farm. Photo: CeRID

Fadhumo a 32-year-old mother of eight children, was provided with agricultural training based on sustainable farming practices, seeds, farming tools and a piece of land to grow crops. On average, Fadumo earned an income of USD 300 after every harvest that allowed her to pay USD 16 per month in school fees for her four sons who attend a local madrasa, and look after 14 members of her extended family. She saved enough money to access a loan and opened a shop. The saving groups also improved women’s confidence, engagement in decision making, and the building of a social network that they can rely upon.  

Somalia, a fragile nation, has endured prolonged conflicts, climatic challenges like droughts and floods, food insecurity, inter-clan conflicts, and limited access to essential services. By mid-2023, over 1.4 million Somalis had been internally displaced due to these factors, with more than 8.25 million people urgently needing humanitarian aid. Furthermore, over 3.7 million people in Somalia are currently experiencing high acute food insecurity.

A-three-day old group of the newly IDP at the Kahare camp; they had hopes of receiving humanitarian assistance. Photo: Trócaire

This number is expected to rise to 4.3 million people between October and December 2023, including 1.5 million malnourished children, with 330,630 of them being severely malnourished from August 2023 to July. Insecurity and inter-clan clashes disrupt peace, economic development, access to basic services, and psychosocial well-being. This disproportionately affects women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and minority groups. The lack of livelihood resources has compromised household food consumption, compelling these populations to relocate from their homes to internally displaced persons (IDP) camps over 20 km away, seeking basic needs and services.  

“The loud sounds of gunfire were deeply traumatic; some of our neighbours lost family members. Our land was taken away. We were overwhelmed by fear and left with no means of survival. So, we gathered whatever we could and left our home of over 10 years to Dollow. After a twelve-day journey on a donkey cart, non-stop, we arrived safely. Upon our arrival, we were warmly welcomed by the camp leaders, who provided us with shelter,” recounted Hawa.  

Hawa and her family are among the many people who had to relocate to Gedo in search of a better and more secure life after their livelihoods were disrupted by an inter-group conflict. In this context, the triple nexus approach is crucial to tackling systemic inequalities. This approach not only connects short-term relief to lasting social progress but also fosters peaceful environments, enabling the full realization of human rights. 

A community member from Boyle community participating in the DRR mapping exercise in Luuq District. Photo: CeRID

Trócaire uses a conflict-sensitive approach that engages with communities for feedback and information sharing around local interventions. Its programmes are integrated not only from a thematic point of view, but also jointly targets both host communities and IDPs to promote social cohesion. Trócaire works alongside communities to establish committees that play critical roles in conflict resolution. For instance, within the resilience programme, farmers established committees to aid in managing the farm and resolving farm conflicts. Collectively, they’ve set farm rules and plans, for example, through the establishment of watering schedules for each group as well as penalties for those who don’t respect these guidelines. This has promoted clear expectations for each farmer, equitable sharing of resources, and smooth running of the shared farm. In parallel, Water Management Committees (WMC), Community Education Committees (CEC), and Village Health Committees (VHCs) have played an active role in addressing resource-based conflicts. For example, locally led and formed WMC oversees the management of scarce water resources by ensuring local water systems are functional and promoting sustainable and fair access to water. These committees have coexisted and supported each other, where the WMC’s management of water resources has been supported by the CEC’s efforts to engage with both local and IDP communities to raise funds for school development.  

Trócaire has supported the formation of other community-based committees (named, ‘community peace champions’), including Natural Resource Management and Disaster Risk Reduction committees. These work on promoting peaceful coexistence among their communities, disaster risk reduction and natural resource management to protect the environment, sustainable exploitation of resources and reduction of climate related shocks and conflict. The committee members are comprised of people from different socioeconomic strata of the community who have received training. In turn, these individuals represent the voices of the community they serve, identifying priorities through consultations that are partly supported by Trócaire.  

These committees collaborate closely with community members, institutions, and local leaders that fully recognize and acknowledge their presence and work in fostering peaceful coexistence. They work within their respective communities and are the first point of contact when conflicts arise. For example, at the negotiation stage between the conflicting parties, a delegation of community elders and local leaders is convened.  

The elders have not only recognized but also commended efforts made to promote peace. Following a sensitization session, community leaders expressed their sentiments, emphasizing the paramount importance of peace.  

 “Without peace, nothing can be achieved, blacksmiths cannot forge metals, people dare not light fire for fear of attack, access to water sources becomes impossible and life itself becomes unstable,” one leader remarked. 

Another leader added, “In times of violence, no son is born, but instead we lose many young and productive men.”  

A peace building session in Gedo; aimed to sensitize community leaders on the importance of fostering peace. Photo: Mohamed, Trócaire

Trócaire recognizes that gains made through community-level peacebuilding are only sustainable if these are hinged upon community ownership. As such, collaboration and coordination with local institutions, District Health Boards, IDP leaders, local authorities, and government officials are central to the design of Trócaire’s action and programmes. These collaborations not only ensure conflict management in communities, but also provide a conducive environment for the implementation of the Humanitarian Development Plan (HDP) and ensure communities, both host and IDPs, can enjoy a broad range of rights. 

This piece was co-written by Maurine Akinyi, Programme Support Officer, Trócaire Somalia and Dominique Godbout, Humanitarian Program Officer, Development and Peace-Caritas Canada.

Canadian civil society organizations (CSOs) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC) are increasingly interested in working on the Triple Nexus, or programming across humanitarian-development-peace pillars.

With this in mind, Cooperation Canada has been working on a series of articles on the Triple Nexus, aimed at highlighting what works and what doesn’t in the field initiatives undertaken by its members, as well as some of the potential challenges and opportunities in expanding Triple Nexus programming.

Learn more about the Triple Nexus in practice by reading these stories from the field.

This story is part of Cooperation Canada’s Triple Nexus Spotlight Series 

The village of Shasha, a little to the west of Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, illustrates well the integration of humanitarian, development, and peace work. The rich volcanic soils in this area are densely settled by small-scale farmers who, in recent years, have been joined by thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) fleeing combat zones. The arrival of IDPs creates the potential for more conflict as they seek out plots of land to live on and support their families. Local NGOs are implementing Triple Nexus projects to meet humanitarian needs (short-term food assistance), development needs (land for IDPs to grow food) and to prevent conflict between IDPs and host communities. This is one of the projects I visited in January 2023, alongside colleagues from the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Peace programming is central to MCC’s work, and sometimes included in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank’s work.   

In the DRC, the conflict is highly visible and ever-shifting, with dozens of armed groups involved (Congolese military, armed groups supported by foreign actors, Congolese who have armed themselves to defend their resources, and now peacekeepers from East Africa and the UN) and daily reports of troop movements and attacks in rural areas. Much of the conflict is rooted in competition for minerals, with some groups wanting to exploit the minerals and others protecting their land. Eastern Congo is rich in several critical minerals in high demand by green economy companies. There are some local artisanal miners, but much of the mining industry is run by foreign companies, including Canadian companies, who have a mixed record of abiding by Congolese laws and contributing to development outside the mines themselves.   

Some of the partners we met are working to reduce these types of armed conflict, contributing to peace at a societal level, or what is often called “big P peace”. A Congolese partner works directly with armed groups, encouraging their members to disarm, while also helping those who disarm to find livelihood activities and communities that will accept them.  

All partners are working toward “little P peace” or reducing interpersonal conflict. These efforts are often integrated into projects with humanitarian or development goals or both. This can look like providing a water source for a community garden, and a second water source for the wider community who are not members of the garden group. In some cases, working on “little P” involves organizing workshops or ongoing clubs that help people manage interpersonal conflict, recover from past trauma, or learn mediation skills. While there are effective tools to measure the impact of these “small P” activities at a community level, it’s not clear to what degree they contribute toward “big P peace” across society.   

From the partners we visited, there were some agreed messages about the triple nexus. We heard from many partners and project participants that “there is no development without peace” i.e., peace and development are intertwined, and there are synergies in working on both together. Our partners have been doing Nexus work all along, often with different funding streams. When asked, they seemed agnostic about whether funding should come from a single source or more. They have the capacity and experience to deliver programming that responds to the needs of the moment. They did ask that different donors recognize this diversity of programming and try to align reporting requirements.   

We also heard that peace programming can be inexpensive (compared to other types of programming). In many cases, it can be incorporated into humanitarian or development projects without much additional cost, but it adds significant value to the project by reducing the risk of conflict that might undermine the project’s gains.   

The MCC partners we met welcomed our questions and were pleased to know that Canada (GAC and CSOs) is looking more closely at nexus work. It may be a new area of work for us, but not for them. With considerable Nexus programming experience already, partners such as these can help us learn about and improve Nexus programming.