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Child rights and peace

For UNICEF peace is both an enabler and outcome of the realization of children’s rights to live safe, healthy, fulfilled and peaceful lives in their homes, communities and societies. Building and sustaining peace is vital to UNICEF’s mandate. Violent conflict acts as an impediment to the realization of children’s rights. It harms children both directly and indirectly, and undermines their potential as individuals and productive members of their families, communities, and society. There are currently 460 million children living in conflict zones (HAC Appeal 2024). They are more than twice as likely to be undernourished and without clean water; twice as likely to die before the age of five, and more than three times as likely to not attend school as their counterparts in non-conflict-affected settings. Addressing conflict dynamics is essential if UNICEF is to deliver its mandate. For more information see UNICEF Peacebuilding Programming Framework (upcoming)

WASH and conflict

Children under the age of 15 who are living in conflict are on average nearly three times more likely to die from diseases linked to unsafe water and sanitation than from direct violence. Children who live in extremely fragile contexts are three times as likely to practice open defecation, four times as likely to lack basic sanitation services, and eight times as likely to lack basic drinking water services. In conflicts, deliberate and indiscriminate attacks destroy water infrastructure, injure personnel, and cut off the power that keeps water systems running. Attacks on water systems directly impact children – when clean water becomes unavailable children are forced to rely on unsafe water, putting them at risk of disease. For more information see UNICEF’s Water Under Fire.

WASH and conflict sensitivity

Despite good intentions, WASH interventions in fragile and conflict-affected contexts are at risk of unintentionally worsening conflict or contributing to wider conflict dynamics. The choice of where to drill boreholes, how to share and manage resources among refugee/internally displaced populations and host communities, whether to allow water points to be used for crops and/or livestock, and how to govern water resources, distribution and/or access to WASH services in contexts where exclusion is prevalent, can all be contentious issues that if not managed effectively can escalate into conflict. WASH interventions have not always and systematically considered how programming decisions can intersect with larger social, political, economic, cultural and environmental factors, and in turn contribute to, or exacerbate, conflict dynamics. Conflict and peace analysis is essential to understand how WASH interventions may worsen tensions and conflict, so that conflict risks can be identified and relevant conflict sensitive strategies adopted to mitigate the same.

WASH and peacebuilding

As with other social services, WASH can serve as an important peace dividend if it is associated with the cessation of violence and as an additional benefit of a peace process or agreement between divided communities. Establishing more accountable and transparent mechanisms for water governance, which bridge state and non-state stakeholders, can lead to more effective water management and increased trust in the government, thus strengthening the social contract. WASH programming can create incentives for joint action and provide platforms for collaboration that strengthen inter-communal trust.

Gender and age intersect in important ways that enable or constrain WASH’s ability to build and sustain peace. For example, the integration of a ‘gender lens’ can amplify the positive impacts of WASH programmes on peace, by reducing the distinct vulnerabilities of women and girls in fragile and conflict-affected contexts and by engaging both girls and boys meaningfully in the pursuit of inclusive solutions to fragility and conflict. Children are often identified as the most common victims of conflict and violence, whilst young people are typically identified as perpetrators of violence. However, children and young people are also vital agents for peace and security in their communities and societies in distinct and valuable ways that can be promoted through their participation in WASH.