Bridging the relief and development gap remains one of the major challenges for academics and practioners alike, all the more in the context of the wider EU-foreign policy prerogatives.
Especially in countries where natural hazards become a common occurrence such as Haiti, the Sahel or the Horn of Africa as well as regions affected by protracted civil strife, development and relief work needs to complement each other to ensure economic prosperity and to achieve sustainable peace. These efforts, however, cannot be conceived of and implemented insulated from other aspects of the European Foreign and Security Policy.
The EU’s post Lisbon institutional setting not only opens the possibility for a more coherent and comprehensive response to crises, but also poses the problem of coordination and cooperation among a number of independent actors at the EU and at the EU member state level as well as from the international donor community. Actors involved in foreign policy, development and humanitarian work have different agendas; they differ regarding the principles and objectives they pursue as well as regarding the levels and modalities of intervention.
The “Joint Humanitarian-Development Framework (JHDF) approach” presented in this paper addresses this challenge, whereby EU staff in delegations, headquarters, member states, international organisations, development and humanitarian agencies, as well as national counterparts need to understand each other’s perceptions, objectives and motivations in order to agree on a common framework for action.
Drawing from practical experiences and inside evidence from the European Commission (DG DEVCO and DG ECHO) as well as the European External Action Service (EEAS), the study aims at evaluating the potential of the JHDF approach and at triggering further discussions of the theoretical and practical value of this tool.
Co-Authors:
Christian Webersik, University of Agder
Jacques Prade, DG ECHO
