| Possible negative impacts |
Possible Solution |
| Unrealistic expectations of beneficiaries |
Make the aims of the programme explicit |
| The person doing the assessment is biased or may create or maintain power imbalances |
- Involve as many groups as possible including partner staff and community members
- This will not remove all bias or power imbalances but could limit or reduce them
|
Conflict analysis is shaped by the views of certain groups in
society. Maintain existing hierarchical structures |
- Break the community into separate groups to gain all views.
- Use local language to include everyone
- Pay attention to divisions in society and marginalized groups.
|
| Local leaders are against the programme |
- Identify the key influential people early in the planning and design process, and what their key concerns are
|
| Not fully understanding the complexities of the context |
- Outsiders, particularly, not getting access to entire information or opinions
- Use Project staff and community members
- Regularly update the conflict analysis
- Use outside research and other agencies
|
| People will not discuss certain topics (sociocultural, belief systems, legal status) |
- Split community into groups where they can speak more freely
- Additional consideration needed to assign appropriate facilitator (language, sociocultural status etc.)
|
| Community members are forced to express certain point of view by people in authority or armed forces (coercion) |
- The whole team to be alert and observe the cues among community members during the data collection (for example, drivers to quietly observe what is going on outside of meeting room)
- Plain clothes person from armed force/authority
- Informal communication among community members (the team may pretend not to understand local language)
|
| The existence of a conflict between communities is denied by governmental authorities |
- Maintain a strict confidentiality on the conflict analysis and provide an external facing politically acceptable report to complement your internal product
|
| Unbalanced team could lead to the views of particular groups being favoured |
- Ensure a strong stakeholder mapping and selection of the participants, with clear and transparent criteria articulated and communicated with relevant stakeholders
|
| Assessment could cause trauma for the person involved by bringing up negative experiences or conflicts |
- Ensure trained and skilled facilitation is deployed and avail referral mechanisms to participants exhibiting signs of distress or trauma
|
