The Humanitarian / Development Nexus in Colombia

The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit emphasized the importance of strengthening the Humanitarian and Development Nexus for greater coherence and to build resilience of affected populations. But the practical implementation of this approach is often complicated in the field. The Peer-2-Peer Project traveled to Colombia to capture an innovative approach to the Nexus, building on local coordination and information management as an entry point to bring humanitarians and development actors to work together.

Some key steps of this approach were:

• Transforming Humanitarian Local Teams into Local Coordination Teams that include development and peacebuilding actors at the department level, co-chaired by a development and a humanitarian organization, with sufficient delegated authority
• Developing OCHA information management system into an independent project providing humanitarian, development and peacebuilding congregated infographics and analysis
• Elaborating Development and Peacebuilding products aligned with the Humanitarian products, such as the Development and Peacebuilding Needs Overview and 4W
• Creating joint planning and programming activities at field level.