What is unique about transitions^[1] in the peacebuilding sector? How does working in a conflict area affect a transition from international to local actors? What recommendations or tools do INGOs working in peacebuilding and/or conflict areas need to support their responsible transitions? What guidance is there for local actors working with communities in conflict long after INGOs leave?

As a summer Fellow at CDA Collaborative Learning, specifically working on the Stopping As Success (SAS+) program, I was given (and eagerly ran with) these questions to grapple with and dig into. As locally led development^[2] becomes a widely accepted best practice in the international development, humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding sectors, the implications for INGOs is to listen to communities, collaborate with local actors, and transition to local leadership in responsible, transparent, and effective ways. It was these transitions in the peacebuilding sector that became the focus of my study.

What followed was a summer of research. I read the entire “What Transformation Takes” book and all the papers and scholarly articles on the topic I could find online. I briefly fell prey to the trap of needing to examine a “transition gone wrong” in order to find helpful recommendations, rather than appreciate successful ones and the lessons they can teach us. I interviewed two SAS+ accompaniment partners (as described below) to try to understand their experience with transitions in conflict areas. After all that, I think I have found a key piece to the puzzle we are calling “trauma-informed transitions”.

A Trauma-Informed Lens to Transitions

Similarly to how trauma-informed care recognizes the holistic impacts of trauma on a person, trauma-informed transitions keep the damage conflict has caused and its effects on individuals, communities, local actors, and their interactions central and front of mind during the transition to local leadership. Trauma refers to any event that causes a person distress. The generality of the definition is meant to be inclusive of all types and levels of trauma people have experienced and the vast complexity of consequences of trauma on individuals, communities, organizations, and society.^[3] The trauma-informed care approach recognizes that trust has been broken with government, institutions, people groups, and even next-door neighbors and family members and will take a long time to rebuild. Everyone has lost something irreplaceable—whether it be property, security, or loved ones—and are looking to regain material goods, reclaim their home communities, or seek justice from the perpetrators. The complexity of rebuilding after violence informs programming and how responsible transitions occur.

The layers of development and peacebuilding work are important to note as all need to be aware of the ways that trauma may creep into every interaction. An essential piece of this approach is trust. Trust may look different in each distinct layer and trust chains are created. Trust chains occur when two parties are connected through a reliable mutual middle party and therefore are able to interact with confidence. For example, international actors have relationships with local actors who serve communities made up of individuals. Donors want accountability from all layers especially in peacebuilding where their investment may be vulnerable. They need to trust INGOs to be excellent stewards of funding and often struggle to trust local actors in the same way. INGOs act as mediators whose largest role at times is connecting the chain by being trustworthy and bridging the gap between donors and local actors. Actors at each level must be aware of these fragile dynamics in order to provide trauma-informed programming and peacebuilding support, as well as continuing to participate in a responsible transition without leaving local actors and the community they serve feeling abandoned or without resources, which may be re-traumatizing.

How Trauma and Trust Plays Out in Transitions

Now having established that being trauma-informed and building trust is vital to conducting peacebuilding programing and in conflict areas: how is this important in transitions?

To answer my questions, I interviewed Amy Gaman, Managing Director of Nuru Nigeria and Matt Lineal, Chief Implementation Officer at Nuru International. The Nuru Collective has a compelling partnership model with intentionality and trust-building at every step. From the start of creating new local Nuru entities with a transition plan in place to a collective governing body that makes joint decisions and shares learning, Nuru colleagues understand what it takes to build and maintain trust within the Collective, communities where they work, and beyond. Nuru Nigeria, the Collective’s most recent transition that happened from 2022-2023, is located in Northeast Nigeria in Boko Haram territory and has witnessed how the conflict has devastated communities and caused deep distrust between neighbors who had previously shared many parts of life. The team slowly introduced money saving as a family activity, then savings groups with neighbors, and finally agribusiness with community members as a step-by-step way to rebuild trust in themselves and their communities.

Amy Gaman shared how she and her team build trust with the community in which they work: “Trust has really diminished a lot. But also there are behavioral issues. The coping mechanisms to trauma that people have chosen are quite different and quite unique depending on their personality, their experience, and how they’ve taken the experience to evolve. So we continue to have difficult discussions with members of our farmer organization. We need an open room for them to be vulnerable”.

Nuru International and Nuru Nigeria worked side-by-side for three years before Nuru Nigeria took the reins completely in a smooth and well-communicated transition. All layers from donors to community members were aware of the model and transition plan and Nuru International and Nuru Nigeria worked together to support each other in spaces where they needed to leverage trust. For example, when Nuru Nigeria met with Nigerian government officials, a Nuru International representative could attend in support. And when Nuru International needs to prove the legitimacy of Nuru Nigeria’s work, they can point to Nuru Nigeria’s M&E processes, reports, and being prime on USAID awards.

Amy explained the importance of this collaboration and utilization of their trust chain in how it builds trust as a partnership: “Because we understand that we need to invest in every single conversation. We need to build trust with every document we share, we need to trust with every email that we share… it has to be in every meeting, in every discussion. You know you have to do it, and you be careful. It takes you longer to build, but be careful that you can lose it quickly”.

When building trust between Nuru Nigeria and Nuru International, both organizations stated that building personal relationships and vulnerability were key to building trust and understanding the traumas people have gone through. They now view their organizations as a “sisterhood” and a deep friendship that continues to have a mutually beneficial relationship.

How To Use a Trauma-Informed Approach on Transitions

Keeping all of this in mind, clear implications emerge for INGOs and local actors to consider how to go about responsible transitions in the peacebuilding sector and in conflict areas. While I believe these are valuable suggestions, I recognize it is not an exhaustive list and some points may be more helpful than others.

Phase 1: PREPARATION AND DECISION (before the transition)

• Plan for longer transitions – Trust takes time to be earned and even more time when trust has already been broken and trauma exists. Cultural differences add to this as both parties are learning how to interact and communicate in a way that is most contextually- and culturally-sensitive.
• Build trust and recognize its fragility – As Amy Gaman noted, trust is built with every interaction both virtually and in person. Keep this in mind as you move forward in programming and transition design and be aware that trust is lost much more quickly than it is gained.
• Learn about trauma-informed care, manifestations of trauma, and the conflict area including its history of colonization – Educating yourself on these topics will allow you to connect with people better and more sensitively, which will lead to building trust. Learning about the history of a place and roots of colonialism may make sense of current dynamics and generational traumas.

Phase 2: PROCESS (during the transition)

• Invest in community – Making personal connections and extending your own vulnerability as an individual goes a long way. Spending time in a community and living a modest lifestyle are noteworthy trust-building exercises communities have noticed.
• Be aware of trust chains and trickle down – Understand your place in a trust chain (perhaps between donors and local actors) in order to support local actors and communities. Recognize that how you build trust and conduct a transition will likely trickle down into how local actors build trust with community members and how community members build trust within interpersonal relationships and structure processes for transitions as well.
• Collaborate with healthy trust chain partners – Just as the Nuru Collective uses its partners for support in government meetings and donor reporting (as described above) be aware of your partnerships and when to utilize your trusting relationships to support each other.

Phase 3: OUTCOME (after the transition)

After a trauma-informed transition occurs, several questions remain that circle around outcomes and can be subjects for future research:

• How do local actors work in the communities they serve with trauma in mind after the transition occurs?
• Does trust between INGOs and local actors shift after a transitional, organizational shift?
• What would it look like to create formal structures in INGOs and local organizations that prioritize caring for one’s own trauma while also working with a traumatized population?
• How can transitions and programming be designed in a trauma-informed way with outcomes in mind?

Trauma-informed transitions are one way to ensure transitions are responsible in the peacebuilding sector or areas affected by conflict. We’d love to hear about your experience with transitions from international to local entities in the peacebuilding sector – and ways you’ve seen trauma and trust impact outcomes. Please get in touch with the SAS+ team by emailing Grace Boone at [email protected].

^[1] Responsible transition refers to a jointly led, planned and gradual process of transfer of technical and procedural ownership from an international to local level, while maintaining some form of relationship. For more SAS+ definitions, look here.

^[2] Locally led development meaning the approach or process in which initiatives are owned and led by people in their own context. For more SAS+ definitions, look here.

^[3] There may be a better term to use than trauma as it originates from Western psychology and may not be the most appropriate or sensitive term for every context.