In recent years, there has been a persistent trend of declining aid contributions from historically major aid donors, affecting particularly the development and peacebuilding sectors. This culminated in the suspension of USAID funding this past January 2025, which had devastating effects on international cooperation. Declining funding contributions have been followed by securitization measures being taken as a foreign policy strategy amid increasing global insecurity, climate degradation risks, and economic fragility.
In an effort to foster joint reflection around the topic, swisspeace co-organized with International Alert the panel “Code Red: Conflict Sensitivity in a Shrinking Donor Landscape – Challenges and opportunities for the HDP Nexus”, held at the Conflict Sensitivity Community Hub conference from the 19-22 May 2025. Here, Tania Hörler, Co-Head of swisspeace’s Peacebuilding Analysis and Impact program, brought insights on the impact of the shrinking donor landscape and de-prioritization of aid funding, specifically on the HDP nexus and its implementation, and reflected on necessary strategies and approaches to navigate current trends. “One of the greatest risks in this moment is the pressure to act quickly, scale down analysis, and focus narrowly on outputs and deliverables. Aid actors are expected to do more with less — and faster,” assessed Tania. She stressed that this tendency undermines coordination and analytical capacity of aid actors, leading ultimately to high risk of exacerbating conflicts that they’re set up to address. The implementation of the humanitarian–development–peace nexus is under significant financial and strategic strain. Short-term budgetary pressures override long-term vision, privileging immediate relief (humanitarian action), breeding competition between the three sectors, and disincentivizing cross-sector collaboration and planning.
In this context, there is a need to reimagine aid models. Firstly, by grounding models in local realities and recognizing local actors and civil society as knowledge holders rather than mere implementers, interventions can be more accurately aligned with real needs. This increases their effectiveness and allows for more strategic and efficient use of the increasingly scarce financial resources within the nexus. Secondly, shared spaces for joint learning and reflection, such as multi-stakeholder conflict sensitivity facilities1 should be safeguarded and invested in, optimizing sector coordination and collective analysis. Thirdly, siloed, “technical” thinking should be set aside in favour of a nexus approach, a structural commitment, whereby humanitarian, development, and peace actors coordinate and collaborate based upon shared, context-specific objectives, towards positive impact. As Tania stated during the panel: “We must invest in inclusive partnerships and spaces for collective reflection. These spaces enable collaboration across sectors, shared understanding, and more adaptive responses. In today’s constrained environment, they are not a luxury — they are essential.”
[1] Such as the Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility in South Sudan or the Conflict Sensitivity Hub in the Democratic Republic of Congo.