PRAXIS IN CONFLICT-SENSITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Catalog description

(Slashed with PACS 60007 ) This course enables students to build the practical skills necessary to advance socially responsible and sustainable development across conflict-affected societies and regions. A key concept explored throughout the course is conflict sensitivity — a sustained, iterative process of analyzing social conflict as a context of development work; understanding the interactions between the context and the development intervention; and making use of the understanding to maximize positive program impacts and minimize negative impacts. Students apply a range of theories to skill-building exercises to learn how to practice conflict-sensitive development. Through these experiential exercises, students think through the entirety of the development program cycle, from needs assessment to proposal development, fundraising, program implementation, capacity building, report writing, monitoring and evaluation and project phaseout. During each of these steps, students examine how to practice cultural sensitivity, stakeholder inclusion, local ownership and sustainability in a context-specific, adaptive manner. Case studies highlight essential themes selected from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a United Nations sponsored list of 17 development goals such as poverty alleviation, food security, health, education, gender equity and climate change action. The course also opens dialogue about how to go beyond the conventional framework of conflict sensitivity to realize conflict-transformative development.