Brief note on NIS and our PROVE Principles
Introduction
The NIS foundation was started by individuals with experience working on the Horn of Africa in response to what was seen as a lack of donor policy and operational success, specifically in Somalia. From the beginning, the creation of NIS was driven by two main objectives: to assist countries and communities to successfully emerge from conflict, and to be pragmatic. In 2014, NIS first developed the PROVE Principles to help guide our project design and field operations (see Annex One below). The PROVE Principles helped to address what we saw as the greatest obstacles to effective policies and interventions in conflict-affected environments. The first iteration of PROVE stands for: Political, Relevant, Opportune, Verified and Expedited. These principles helped us to ensure that our projects were seeking first and foremost to support the strengthening of weakened and/or nascent national institutions following years of conflict. Early experiences and observations in Somalia, Mali, South Sudan and elsewhere, demonstrated that few projects in these conflict-affected environments were being carried out in ways that sought to boost support for the authorities among the population, and thereby to begin the long, painful journey of rebuilding state institutions. Very often, the case with weak regimes is that large sums of money are channelled through international NGOs, UN agencies and others with little or no requirement that they operate with and complement the government institutions that are required to attain sustained peace.
In countries where national institutions have been long absent, have negative connotations or simply have very low capacity, the political significance of aid being delivered through the national government (be it real or perceived) cannot be underestimated. What NIS has witnessed in Somalia and Mali is two countries struggling to emerge from complex conflict; donors and donor funding lining up to support a peaceful transition, but programmes being inhibited by institutional protocols from engaging in imperfect and challenging political environments – and in most cases defaulting to funding NGO and humanitarian interventions that exclude government participation. As a result, populations harbouring very high expectations of new peace agreements or new governments are almost always left disappointed.
Appropriate phasing and prioritisation in environments with weak national institutions remains a policy challenge
In countries such as Somalia and Mali, conventional longer-term development policies and objectives are sometimes over-emphasised at the expense of a focus on short-term confidence building. Time and again we witness the donors' failure to acknowledge that weak governments in unstable environments must demonstrate rapid results to build goodwill. The need to build and sustain momentum around reconciliation processes and state reconstruction efforts is essential to ultimate political stability and economic recovery. To help build this momentum in conflict-affected environments, donors must be quick, flexible, creative and well-informed, as must implementers. Programming must be multifaceted and seek to weaken the drivers of conflict wherever possible using a broad range of interventions which target the full spectrum of challenges from the simplest to the most complex, simultaneously.
If governments cannot create trust, they find themselves without the essential legitimacy needed to conduct 'normal' governmental functions. And this trust can only be earned by concrete demonstrations of good intent.
Post-conflict environments should be treated differently
The field of psychology offers an interesting example for the field of development in an area aptly called, Stabilisation1. In psychology, the term stabilisation refers to a phase of treatment that precedes more standard and longer-term treatment for victims of trauma. Psychologists have discovered that if trauma victims are subjected to more standard treatment practices without first being properly stabilised, there is a significant risk of worsening the patient's condition. The guidelines for stabilisation in psychology are different than the guidelines for standard treatment practices, in recognition of the specific needs of the patient during the critical early phase of their care. In psychological stabilisation literature emphasis is placed on establishing safety and trust. Without this foundation, a therapist will be unable to move the patient towards standard treatments.
The same logic can be applied to the context of state instability: if governments cannot create trust, they find themselves without the essential legitimacy needed to conduct 'normal' governmental functions. And this trust can only be earned by concrete demonstrations of good intent. Donors, likewise, need to recognise the importance of the psychological dimension of post-conflict recovery. If trust is not created, conventional development remedies will lack a stable platform for success.
Evolution to PROVE Principles 2.0
NIS firmly believes that the PROVE Principles developed in 2014 (PROVE 1.0) serve as a useful guide for designing projects in countries just emerging from large scale conflict with weak national institutions and the most complex of security environments. However, following six years of implementation experience, NIS is now carrying out a wide range of projects all aimed at helping countries emerge from conflict in a variety of ways. Over this period, we have learned much about the importance of generating momentum across a broad spectrum of stakeholders to help a country escape the pull of conflict. This experience had demonstrated the importance of working across multiple sectors simultaneously to create a broad-based momentum towards peace. This includes supporting formal peace processes, programming focussing on social cohesion and reconciliation between communities, a more targeted approach to gender equality and social inclusivity across programming and seeking ways to improve the futures of unemployed youth, which are often exploited by groups to further support violent agendas. Only through such a multifaceted approach can a country hope to transition away from conflict and towards peace and development.
These experiences are now reflected in our updated version of the PROVE Principles 2.0 to better reflect what we believe needs to be the guiding themes for our work into the future. The PROVE Principles 2.0 recognise a broader range of tools that can contribute to helping conflict-affected countries meet the challenges of transitioning towards longer-term development and greater social, economic and political resilience.
PROVE 2.0 stands for: Politically attuned, Restorative, On-demand, Value-adding and Expedited. A major challenge that often continues to plague the sector regardless of programme type, is the failure to appreciate the need for urgent action in unstable environments: populations not only suffer from an absence of essential needs, but often also from a lack of trust in their governments, fellow community members and international donors and implementers. A project conceived of under the PROVE Principles 2.0 observes the following criteria:
- Politically attuned — projects must be designed and managed in a way that incorporates the complex politics often present in conflict-affected environments. Genuine political understanding not only relates to local politics, but also the politics of the region, global considerations, as well as inter-donor politics and how donor missions interact with their capitals. Only through acknowledging these multiple dimensions can programmes be implemented in a Conflict Sensitive manner and avoid causing potential harm.
- Restorative — projects must help to restore the functioning of key societal elements such as economic activity, social interaction, public service provision, a safe security environment and social trust.
- On-demand — projects must provide benefits that cater to the most immediate needs demanded by project beneficiaries, including better security, improved economic and community infrastructure, increased livelihoods, capacity-building and greater social inclusiveness.
- Value-adding — projects must be designed to add-value in an operational context. This can mean complimenting and boosting the effectiveness of existing projects, furthering discussions of difficult issues or challenging the status quo, including project themes, locations, technologies or types of intervention.
- Expedited — projects must be implemented quickly and with minimal time lag between initial discussions and actual project implementation, as windows of opportunity are unpredictable and most conflict-affected communities have expectations that have long been waiting to be fulfilled. Responsive and timely implementation builds the trust, momentum and optimism necessary for projects to succeed, regardless of a project's main objectives.
Annex One
NIS PROVE Principles 1.0
PROVE 1.0. stands for: Political, Relevant, Opportune, Verified and Expedited. The principles are an attempt to address what we see as the greatest obstacles to effective policies and interventions in fragile states and areas of political instability The need for urgent action in these fragile environments cannot be overstated: populations not only suffer from an absence of essential needs, but also from a lack of faith that their governments can provide them. A project conceived of under the PROVE principles would need to observe the following criteria:
- Political — the project must be implemented in close cooperation with the authorities in ways that boost their legitimacy and political reputation among the population;
- Relevant — projects must provide benefits that cater to the most immediate needs of the people, including security, basic amenities/infrastructure, and livelihoods;
- Opportune — in terms of timing, partners and location, projects should be implemented in ways that respond to and counter a loss of trust in the ability of the state to meet essential needs that provide maximum strategic stabilisation benefits;
- Verified — projects must meet a genuine need of the local population, and thus must be verified with the local community and authorities; and
- Expedited — once identified and verified, projects must be implemented quickly and with minimal time lag between initial discussions and actual project implementation.
If we accept these criteria, it is easy to see why humanitarian and more traditional development policies often fail to address the challenge of political instability in fragile environments. When examining possibilities for interventions in fragile environments, conventional concerns about sustainability, equality, and representation need to be considered in the specific context of what the overall political objective should be, and with an understanding that the pursuit of design perfection is often the enemy of relevance and impact.
Applying PROVE principles during peace/reconciliation processes
Peace talks and reconciliation processes are a key aspect of international diplomacy, especially today when conflicts are characterised by multiple parties and often non-state actors. In many cases reconciliation processes will be taking place in the context of extended conflict, spanning sometimes decades and affecting multiple generations.
During discussions with organisations specialising in reconciliation and conflict resolution, it has become clear that these processes are very much focused on the conversations taking place around the negotiating table. An essential part of any reconciliation process is that the general population has faith that the process will result in a change for the better. In order to combat this lack of faith in the given reconciliation process, parties involved and international supporters must recognise that conversations taking place around the negotiating table are an abstraction for the majority of average citizens.
In many conflict-affected countries, populations are often suffering from a kind of "faith fatigue" where it is difficult to believe that yet another process will actually achieve anything. The question arises: How do you sustain people's faith in a peace process while it is ongoing, especially after extended conflicts and multiple failed earlier peace talks? One potential answer is the inclusion of a "PROVE track" for any peace and reconciliation talks. This track would seek to ensure that what is happening at the negotiating table is translated into tangible, concrete evidence down to the village level that something substantive is happening. Process-linked projects would be intentionally simple, easily understood and must not have been possible without the consent and cooperation of the parties to the negotiations. Projects that could have taken place regardless of reconciliation efforts would fail to achieve the political objective of creating a PROVE track. Generating some kind of trust among the people in the peace process goes a long way to generating legitimacy in the institutions that will emerge from the process. In addition, providing some kind of tangible evidence that the peace process is achieving something will make it more difficult for spoilers to mobilise support to disrupt the process.
Projects should be identified by their political, geographic, economic or symbolic importance. In addition, the project must carry sufficient risks to be meaningful in terms of boosting faith during peace talks, but not so risky as to potentially derail the process if the project does not succeed.
Stabilisation starts with the basics
A useful conceptual tool for ensuring that interventions in fragile environments deal with some of the most pressing practical and political needs is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs2. At the international level there is in many cases a policy drift towards concerns and issues that are not immediately relevant to the most pressing needs in developing countries. Maslow's hierarchy rises from physiological needs to safety, social, esteem and self-actualisation. In the worst conflict-affected countries, clearly physiological and safety needs are generally the greatest, though physical and psychological needs do co-exist. Concrete confidence-building measures must address basic needs first as a way of working towards more psychological needs such as trust, legitimacy, expectations, identity, etc.. Meeting these basic needs is often left to NGOs and other international agencies to cater for with little or no involvement of the national government, thus denying the government an opportunity to boost legitimacy and provide evidence that this government is going to be different. Helping the authorities to assist in meeting these basic needs for the population is the most rational place to start building trust and legitimacy for a vulnerable regime.
