Do No Harm Training for CPS Partners

Participants were drawn from CPS Network Partners in Liberia. Organized by the Civil Peace Service Network Partners - Liberia in partnership with Bread for the world (BftW), the training also offered a tool under the Do No Harm Framework to systematically analyze the impact of relief or development interventions on the conflict situation in their areas of operation.

Participants were equipped with the basic knowledge and an understanding of how aid or development interventions may negatively affect conflict settings and how to use this experience in future project planning.

The training also gave participants the opportunity to know how aid can support peace or war. How aid can reinforce, exacerbate, and prolong a conflict; how it can also help to reduce tensions and strengthen people’s capacities to disengage from fighting and find peaceful options for solving problems, when aid is given in conflict settings.

The training began with an explanation of the background of the approach and the developments, which have led to the “Do No Harm” Framework and furthered up with a careful look at the details of an aid program and planning can affect the conflict setting, through either resource transfers or through implicit ethical messages.

The training concluded with the application of the framework to the participants’ own situation, analysis of concrete conflict setting from the work experience of the participants and how typical project interventions might affect these settings.

The training was facilitated by Mr. Sartu W. Doe of the Civil Peace Service and Samuel Darpolor, a Consultant from Sister for Research and Capacity Building and supervised by Dr. Rolf Grafe, a Consultant from the support team of Bread for the World. Civil Peace Service is a German-funded program aiming at preventing violence and promoting peace in crisis zones. The Civil Peace Service - CPS, Bread for the World - BftW Partners work with marginalized groups to reduce fragmentation in society and ensure that natural resources are utilized for the benefit of the general public.