At the 34th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the African Development Bank and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) co-convened a high-level panel discussion joined by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) on building long-term resilience, ensuring sustainable impact and contributing to restoring dignity and hope in fragile and conflict settings in Africa.
The event, held on 28 October 2024 in Geneva and titled "Navigating complexities: partnering for impact at the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus," was chaired by Eva Svoboda, Director of International Law, Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy, ICRC.
Staying engaged
In fragile contexts in Africa, investing in sustainable resilience pathways requires evidence-based operational partnerships that deliver. Strong context-specific knowledge and trusted relationships are important to secure national and local ownership as well as lasting results.
As the partnership between the African Development Bank and ICRC continues to expand, so has the need to scale up proven partnership models in alignment with the African Development Bank's new Ten-Year Strategy (TYS, 2024-2033) and the 2022-2026 Strategy for Addressing Fragility and Building Resilience in Africa.
As Frederik Teufel, Lead Coordinator, Transition States Coordination Office at the African Development Bank, pointed out: "The African Development Bank is committed to strengthening collaboration with the humanitarian sector, such as with the ICRC and the wider Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, leveraging the complementarity of mandates across the Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus."
For the Bank, this includes a shared focus on scaling up investments in women, youth, displaced populations, hosting communities across the fragility spectrum, and fostering climate resilience in alignment with the ongoing COP28 Climate, Relief, Recovery, and Peace Declaration implementation, which will continue at COP29 and beyond.
Leveraging impact
With escalating needs amidst stagnant funding and the spread of protracted crises, strategic partnerships and coordination have become vital. The multilateral development bank community is actively working to integrate conflict sensitivity analysis into their initiatives and programming.
In Abdi Abdullahi, Fragility and Resilience Manager at IsDB's words: "We need a platform to share initiatives and coordinate efforts among the community. With its neutral intermediary role and boots on the ground, the ICRC could facilitate and structure this platform at different phases of a conflict. Our strategic partnership with the ICRC has steadily strengthened over the past few years, encompassing operational collaboration in fragile and conflict-affected contexts and joint efforts in knowledge sharing and development".
Focusing on the needs and aspirations of communities is critical to designing partnerships and strategies that ensure continued access to essential services, greater resilience, and sustainable impact over time.
Olivier Ray, Director for Mobilization, Movement Cooperation, Communication, and Partnerships at ICRC, affirmed, "Respect for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is a global public good and can be a powerful lever to mobilize partners and local actors towards recovery and peace."
Respecting International Humanitarian Law in new or protracted crises has the potential to mitigate the risks of large development reversals due to conflict. It translates into enhanced access to people in hard-to-reach areas, protection of civilian infrastructure and upholding people's dignity in conflict by ensuring their access to essential services.
The conference also allowed for continued bilateral exchanges between the African Development Bank and its partners, such as ICRC, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), IsDB, Interpeace, the World Economic Forum's Humanitarian and Resilience Investing Initiative, and many others.
Next steps?
As partnerships and implementation of the Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus advance, opportunities exist to explore further how IHL can help maintain and protect community resilience in conflict settings in Africa and ultimately reduce pressures on scarce humanitarian funding through development financing in humanitarian settings.
The African Development Bank and IsDB are developing tailored Operational Framework Agreements with the ICRC, aligned with each institution's unique mandate, mission, and specific focus areas. These agreements aim to strengthen interoperability, streamline operational collaboration and amplify impact in their respective work areas.
