Conflict Sensitivity in Practice

One of the most common questions asked about conflict sensitivity relates to what it looks like in practice. How do we know whether we are being conflict sensitive? This is particularly challenging for staff who are further away from hands-on programme implementation (e.g. headquarters staff, or staff in finance or HR departments). In order to promote institution-wide improvements in terms of conflict sensitivity, we realised that we needed to develop tailored guidance that is relevant for different roles. We used the self-assessments as an opportunity to start to gather information on what conflict sensitivity looks like in practice for different roles. As an annex to the main assessment tool, the consortium developed a questionnaire to measure staff knowledge and awareness, and to start to map out what conflict sensitivity looks like in practice for different types of jobs.

Staff CSA Competency Expectations - General Questions

1. What do you understand by the term conflict sensitivity?

2. What implications if any do you think conflict sensitivity has for your role?

3. Do you feel that you need to be conflict sensitive?

4. Do you feel that you are currently conflict sensitive?

5. If yes, can you give some examples?

6. If no, why do you think you are not?

7. Do you currently perform any activities that are consciously conflict sensitive?

8. What actions do you believe you could do to be more conflict sensitive?

9. Are there any impediments to your conflict sensitivity?

10. What needs to happen to build your conflict sensitivity?

11. Any thoughts on how we could improve conflict sensitivity in our organisation generally?
 

This was followed by more in-depth role specific conversations tailored to different job roles. The consortium is moving this work forward by starting to develop guidance for different job roles, which will potentially be integrated into HR induction procedures.