4.8. Team Europe Initiatives in fragile and conflict-affected contexts
The Team Europe approach initially started as an ad-hoc response to the outbreak of Covid-19 and the need to have a quick and effective response. TEIs need to build on the lessons learned from that experience, by systematically adopting an integrated and Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus approach in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. For further information on how this is done, see Chapter 2.7.
The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus and Team Europe Initiatives can be mutually beneficial because of their shared nature of aiming at capitalizing on the most adequate combination of elements in a specific context. The HDP Nexus approach refers to the aim of strengthening collaboration, coherence and complementarity between humanitarian, development, and peace actors. It seeks to capitalize on the comparative advantages of each pillar –to the extent of their relevance in the specific context, in order to reduce overall vulnerability and the number of unmet needs, strengthen risk management capacities and address root causes of conflict to build resilience, and sustainable peace. The HDP Nexus approach is to be operationalised through key tools such as joint analysis, coordination mechanisms, joined-up planning and programming, peace-building
activities, appropriate financing mechanisms and joint monitoring/evaluation. Thus, the Nexus approach can maximise the impact of TEIs in crisis contexts through its appropriate coordination with humanitarian and peace actions. TEI management mechanisms (e.g. the Steering Committee involving the Heads of Mission) can also benefit the HDP Nexus Approach.
The European Consensus for Development had already committed the EU and its Member States to make strategic responses on the ground and to pursue synergies in fragile and conflict-affected areas through shared knowledge and joint analysis (including joint conflict analysis). The Consensus also urged the EU and Member States to ‘integrate conflict sensitivity in all their work, to maximise the positive impact on peace’. It is essential that conflict sensitivity is incorporated into the development and crisis response (e.g. in relation to the COVID-19 responses) as well as the HDP nexus, thus ensuring that potential negative impacts and harmful impacts do not differ unintentionally from EU interventions.
Moreover, the EU approach to conflict analysis (and to conflict sensitivity more broadly) recognises that any comprehensive understanding of conflict and of conflict-related risks must include an analysis of how gender roles and norms interact with conflict both positively and negatively.
The NDICI-Global Europe Regulation requires that a conflict analysis shall be conducted when programming for partner countries and regions in situations of crisis, post-crisis or fragility and vulnerability to ensure conflict sensitivity and that due account shall be taken of the special needs and circumstances of these countries and regions and of their population. This also applies to Joint Programming and TEIs, in order to ensure conflict sensitivity, and to all the TEIs.
The regional TEI on the Afghan displacement situation aims at providing sustainable solutions for displaced Afghans and their host communities in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia by strengthening protection, improving livelihood conditions, and supporting better migration management and the fight against trafficking in human beings and smuggling of migrants.
The TEI brings together development and humanitarian actors from the Commission (DGs INTPA, ECHO and HOME), 12 EU Member States and the EUAA. It is designed in a flexible manner and takes into consideration the particularly fragile context in which support is provided, which requires close cooperation under a Nexus approach.
Such an approach is needed in order to address the comprehensive short-term and longer-term challenges of this crisis, such as the worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and the ongoing refugee crisis at the Afghan-Pakistan border. On the Afghan side of the border, in a Nexus approach, DG ECHO’s focus is on protection and live-saving assistance, while DG INTPA focuses on the provision of protection activities, basic services and small-scale livelihoods, so as to ease the reintegration of returnees and support host communities. Actions to increase social cohesion within the host communities are also planned.
Since 2021, an indicative contribution of EUR 1.1 billion has been made available by TEI members for country- and region-based initiatives.
TEIs also help to improve business continuity management in fragile conflict and crisis contexts because formal and informal partnerships allow continuous cooperation even during times of external shocks. During the outbreak of conflicts, implementing organisations must comply with varying internal security guidelines, which allow some actors to remain working in the field while requiring others to stop their operations and sometimes even withdraw staff. TEIs allow actors to use their partnership and their comparative advantages, such as presence on the field and networks.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Peace and Security TEI, which focuses on the eastern DRC and Kasai, is a collective effort by the EU, Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Sweden to coordinate actions to achieve the following common objectives: (1) contribute to peacebuilding initiatives in the DRC, (2) support implementing actors to improve the functioning of security services, and (3) strengthen the rule of law and support justice systems. Actions that contribute to peace and stability in the DRC are, in particular, part of the triple Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus. The TEI is consistent with the Political Framework for Crisis Approach regarding peace and security in the East of the DRC, which the Council approved in September 2022.