Workshop on the Humanitarian-Development Nexus in Chad, December 2018

From 04/12/2018 to 05/12/2018 - Place : Ndjamena, Chad

The Humanitarian-Development nexus is a fundamental issue in a context as complex Chad, and occupies a central place in current debates among donors and actors. In 2017, 6 pilot countries were selected by the European Union to put the humanitarian-development nexus into practice, one of which was Chad. Groupe URD was involved in preparing and facilitating a workshop to assess the progress made in Chad and facilitate multi-actor nexus programming.

The European Union’s approach to the humanitarian-development nexus involves consolidating the complementary aspects of its humanitarian, development and external action with that of the Member States in order to understand crisis situations better. Joint analysis should lead to joint planning and action wherever possible and necessary.

As such, the EU Delegation in Chad organized a workshop on the humanitarian-development nexus in Chad on 4-5 December. The participants were DEVCO, DG ECHO, EEAS, Member States, aid agencies and UN agencies involved in the humanitarian-development nexus in Chad, as well as technical and financial partners interested in this approach.

Groupe URD had a dual role in this workshop, carrying out the preparatory work for the event (identifying areas to work on and assessing the progress made in putting the nexus into practice in Chad, the positive points and the obstacles encountered) and facilitating the debates on 4-5 December in Chad.

The overall objective of the workshop was to decide how to implement the nexus more effectively in Chad in order to sustainably tackle the causes of vulnerabilities and fragility in priority sectors.

More specifically, the workshop made it possible to:

Establish a shared analysis of the risks, the vulnerabilities and the causes of the fragility and the different crises in Chad,
Identify the synergies, gaps, and the complementary and contradictory elements of the country strategies implemented by the different organisations present at the workshop,
Establish the foundations of scenario planning that should allow a dynamic nexus approach in relation to uncertainty (risks of drought, Boko Haram, changes in the price of oil and its social consequences, etc.);
Define shared objectives, both at the operational level and at the level of institutional policy and political dialogue, in order to put in place long-term solutions for the causes of vulnerability,
Identify criteria for choosing joint actions for the different crisis basins in the country (arid regions in the North and East, the Lake region, the southern basin on the border with CAR and Cameroon)
Identify the key factors and foundation on which to establish a coordinated operational and policy plan between the diplomatic departments of the Commission (EEAS), ECHO, DEVCO, the Member States, aid agencies and UN agencies.