Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus (HDPN)

Last updated: 19 Mar 2024

Overview

HDPN Overview

Description

At the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit (WHS)¹, States and the international community committed to shifted a a response-based approach to one aimed at overcoming humanitarian needs altogether by addressing the drivers of risks and vulnerabilities.² OECD-DAC's recommendations in the HDPN stress the need to strengthen collaboration, coherence, and complementarity across the respective mandates of humanitarian, development, and peace actors at all levels.³ Furthermore, promoting simultaneous engagement and shared responsibility will reduce the likelihood and impact of recurrent and protracted crises. This can be achieved by addressing the immediate and critical needs of forcibly displaced or otherwise negatively affected populations, and by reducing chronic vulnerabilities, structural challenges, and the threats to sustained peace. To pursue these outcomes, the HDPN calls for strengthened coherence between humanitarian aid and development assistance, together with peace and conflict prevention activities, to facilitate the transition towards sustainable recovery, self-reliance, and resilience.

The HDPN has become the most widely used policy framework addressing the drivers and underlying causes of conflict, migration, and displacement because it recognizes the importance of restoring sustainable peace in violent conflict resolution.

The HDPN recommends the identification of complementarity and comparative advantages within each sector to reduce needs, risks, and vulnerabilities while upholding the humanitarian principles and the protection of humanitarian space.

Relevance to IOM’s Emergency Operations

IOM - like all donors and United Nations (UN) agencies - adheres to the OECD-DAC Recommendations on the Humanitarian Development Peace Nexus (HDPN). The HDPN stresses the importance of conducting joint assessments and risk analyses, to reach the most vulnerable populations, and to ensure a multi-dimensional understanding of each crisis' context. The HDPN approach ensures that humanitarian action aligns with the 'Do No Harm' principle and contributes to strengthening local capacities to achieve durable solutions and the Sustainable Development Goals.

UN organizations, states, civil society, and donors are working towards short and long-term collective outcomes across the humanitarian, development, and peace spectra to fulfill the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Humanitarian aid strategy is shifting from a primarily response-based approach to one that explores the underlying and structural factors behind crises to reduce vulnerabilities and risk.

States and humanitarian actors reaffirmed their commitment to HDPN in 2018 with the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). Additionally, the High Level Panel on Internal Displacement recommends that relevant actors the HDPN proactively engage in resolving internal displacement.

Whether crises manifest as conflicts, disasters, socio-economic shocks, or public health emergencies, the HDPN can play a significant role in preventing crises by reducing chronic vulnerability and addressing the multidimensional structural challenges driving crises in fragile contexts.

IOM applies the HDPN approach across emergency operations. The approach's underlying principles remain present throughout Health and WASH programming.

More information can be found here.

IOM's Role

IOM adopts an HDPN approach in many of its interventions. The commitment to understanding the local context, identifying your stakeholders, using a participatory approach, and building partnerships with key local stakeholders in essential to ensuring that humanitarian interventions are sustainable and work towards conflict prevention and peacebuilding. IOM's HDPN approach includes a focus on enhancing accountability to affected populations (AAP).

IOM also works closely with other UN agencies to guarantee:

Improved Coordination: To ensure that the HPDN can better address common challenges in a coordinated manner based on out comparative advantages. To strengthen joint analysis and understanding of the context, IOM uses the Migration Crisis Operational Framework (MCOF) as a guide to support strategic response to migration crises.
Comprehensive Programming: To resolve the most cost-efficient, transparent, and sustainable processes to deliver IOM's humanitarian interventions, and work to access more core funding or flexible multi-year funding.
Cross-cutting issues: Mainstreaming gender, diversity, climate, environmental issues, and conflict analysis in all IOM interventions.

Media

Contacts

For more information, please write to: hdpn@iom.int.

Footnotes

¹ https://www.agendaforhumanity.org/summit

² https://www.agendaforhumanity.org/

³ https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/public/doc/643/643.en.pdf

Key Points

IOM adheres to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Recommendation on the Humanitarian Peace Development Nexus (HPDN). HDPN calls for increased coordination and collaboration in order to conduct more joint analyses and programming across the UN and with other key stakeholders.
HDPN focuses on coherently addressing and understanding vulnerability before, during, and after crises.
HDPN is about ensuring enhanced accountability to affected populations (AAP).
The High Level Panel on Internal Displacement recommends that relevant actors across the HDNPN proactively engage in resolving internal displacement.
IOM's Migration Crisis Operational Framework (MCOF) reinforces IOM's approach to address needs, reduce vulnerabilities and risks, and build resilient and peaceful societies.
HDPN emphasizes joint analyses and risk assessments and improved data collection using the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM).
HDPN strengthens the quality of protection assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities.