Recovery programs in conflict-affected settings are usually described in humanitarian terms: clinics reopened, wells drilled, schools repaired. That framing is accurate but incomplete. The same interventions, designed differently, either reduce the conditions that make violence rational — or deepen them.
What the evidence says
The Pathways for Peace report, published jointly by the United Nations and the World Bank in 2018, identifies that most violent conflicts are rooted in exclusion from power, resources and services; horizontal inequalities between identity groups; weak institutions unable to manage grievances peacefully; and environmental stress acting as a conflict multiplier.
Development programs that ignore conflict risks may waste time and resources — and may actually make things worse.
Pathways for Peace, UN & World Bank, 2018
Environmental stress is not background
In North Kordofan, desertification is advancing steadily. Vegetation cover is being lost, soils are degrading, and rangeland productivity declines year after year. As productive grazing land contracts, pastoralist herds are pushed into longer and more difficult seasonal migrations in search of fodder and water.
The friction that follows between pastoralist and farming communities is not driven by hostility. It is driven by genuine resource scarcity. Restoring ecological balance reduces the material conditions that make violence a reasonable choice for vulnerable communities.
What this means in practice
It means formalising grazing corridors so that herders have clear, negotiated pathways through the landscape. It means distributing water points so that herds travel shorter distances between sources. It means selecting tree species that produce fodder precisely during the dry season, when rangelands are at their most depleted — directly easing the seasonal gap that drives migration in the first place.
And it means designing every intervention with an understanding of who benefits and who does not. Benefits distributed unevenly across identity or geographic groups do not simply fail to help; they add a new grievance to an existing set.
This is why ARI treats its work as more than a recovery initiative. Net savings from conflict prevention are estimated at between $5 billion and $70 billion per year globally. Recovery, designed well, is an investment in prevention.
