A decade has passed since the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit proposed the importance of the Humanitarian-Development Nexus, which was then extended in 2017 by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to also include Peace. It is not an entirely new concept, building on several decades of efforts better to connect its different elements, such as Linking Relief Rehabilitation and Development in the 1980s and 1990s. This Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus (or Triple Nexus) framework emerged as a necessary shift away from Global North framings of crisis management as separate from development and peace-building, to coherent, context-sensitive approaches that mirror the activities undertaken in affected contexts. The Nexus emphasises the interconnections between humanitarian aid, development, and peacebuilding efforts in order to better serve affected communities, more effectively addressing and anticipating crises while also promoting sustainable development and peace.
The contribution of the HDP Nexus is its prioritisation of collaborative cross-sectoral approaches that foreground local leadership supported by global assistance. Taking a Nexus approach means fostering integrated and collaborative action among humanitarian, development, and peace-building efforts–and the funding for all and each of these–in order to achieve collective outcomes effectively and sustainably.
Nexus approaches provide the most effective way to facilitate the continuity of quality education for all, in all contexts. This is prioritised by communities, teachers and learners, even if they have never heard the term ‘Nexus’. Taking a nexus approach, we can:
In reality, however, despite numerous initiatives and policy reforms, the practical implementation of the Nexus has encountered significant challenges. Progress is impeded by pervasive structural fragmentation and persistent financial silos that prevent the genuine integration of humanitarian, development, and peace efforts. Primary among these constraints is the deep-seated divide between the structuring of global support and local needs and solutions.
In particular, fragmentation between global short-term, reactive humanitarian financing and longer-term development funding manifests as incompatible funding streams, misaligned planning cycles, and divergent and duplicative accountability frameworks. This lack of joined-up, sustained and flexible financing limits coordinated action and results in disconnected, short-term service delivery. The gaps that remain not only leave affected populations under-served, they also make the system itself unsustainable and ineffective. Furthermore, the peace pillar is often vaguely defined or conflated with state-centric security or counter-extremism agendas, rather than focusing on the transformative possibility of holistic education to promote community and social resilience, reconciliation and equity.
Operationally, localization efforts frequently fail due to centralised or global decision-making, which disregards teacher, community or government perspectives. Compliance bottlenecks exclude smaller local organizations from directly receiving the flexible funding they need despite their lived reality as de facto first and continuous responders. This exclusion is compounded by fragmented data systems and an unequal approach to evidence, in which local knowledge is often sidelined, obstructing coherent, context-responsive programming. While funding silos persist, competition and duplication between actors is often rife and coordination among diverse actors can be difficult.
Working through fundamental tensions between the three aspects of the Nexus, while necessary, is often a struggle. This NORRAG project critically assesses progress towards Nexus-oriented ways of working, to reflect on the implications of current geopolitical complexities, and to chart a future course, asking how nexus approaches can inform–or have informed–education, and how education is a key axis of implementation of the Nexus. Features of the Nexus include:
Within these larger themes, we examine the following sub-topics:
