Consultancy - Conflict Sensitivity Assessment

Background

With financial support from the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) will implement the Damal Programme Phase II – Strengthening the Social Contract through Access to Justice in Somaliland (2026–2030). The programme seeks to strengthen the social contract in Somalia by improving the legitimacy, effectiveness, and inclusiveness of justice sector institutions at national, regional, and district levels. Building on the achievements of Damal Programme Phase I (2021–2026), Damal II will consolidate and expand access to justice interventions through three mutually reinforcing outcomes:

• improved access to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms and referral pathways, particularly for vulnerable groups;
• enhanced access to formal justice through integrated support for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) and other vulnerable justice seekers; and
• increased citizen participation in accountability processes relating to justice and security.

The programme will commence with a preparatory phase designed to establish the strategic, operational, and analytical foundations for implementation. During this period, IDLO will undertake a series of complementary assessments, including a Baseline Assessment and Legal Analysis, Political Economy Analysis (PEA), Conflict Sensitivity Assessment (CSA), and Gender Analysis, to validate programme assumptions, refine implementation strategies, strengthen the Theory of Change, and ensure that programme interventions are evidence-based, conflict-sensitive, gender-responsive, and locally owned.

The Conflict Sensitivity Assessment will not start from a blank evidence base. It will build directly on the evidence, operational experience, and learning generated under Damal Programme Phase I. In particular, the consultant will review and use the 2021 Conflict Analysis, mid-term and end-of-Damal I evaluation reports, the 2021 Baseline Assessment and Legal Analysis, and the series of Political Economy Analyses conducted under Damal I. These documents will guide the consultant in understanding historical conflict dynamics, programme risks, institutional relationships, regional variations, and lessons learned from previous ADR, referral, legal aid, GBV response, and community justice interventions. The consultant will validate, update, and expand these findings to reflect the current context and the design priorities of Damal II.

Purpose and Objectives

The purpose of this assignment is to conduct a detailed Conflict Sensitivity Assessment that will help IDLO and its partners understand how conflict, fragility, social tensions, clan dynamics, displacement, political contestation, resource competition, insecurity, and local power relations may affect the design and implementation of Damal II.

The assessment will support IDLO to apply a “do no harm” approach and ensure that programme interventions are designed and implemented in ways that avoid reinforcing exclusion, mistrust, elite capture, clan bias, gender inequality, or local conflict. The specific objectives are to:

• Analyse current and emerging conflict dynamics in Damal II target areas and assess their implications for justice and security programming.
• Update and validate the findings of the 2021 Conflict Analysis identifying which conflict dynamics remain relevant, which have changed, and which new risks have emerged.
• Identify conflict drivers, connectors, dividers, peace capacities, local power relations, institutional tensions, and community resilience mechanisms relevant to the three Damal II outcomes.
• Assess how programme interventions may unintentionally exacerbate conflict, social divisions, local competition, mistrust, exclusion, or perceptions of bias.
• Identify practical opportunities for Damal II to contribute positively to social cohesion, community trust, inclusive justice, peaceful dispute resolution, and accountable justice-security coordination.
• Develop clear conflict risk mitigation measures for programme targeting partner selection, staffing, community engagement, referral systems, ADR support, institutional coordination, and communications.
• Develop a simple and practical conflict monitoring tool that Damal II teams and partners can use throughout implementation to track conflict dynamics and adapt activities accordingly.
• Provide recommendations on how to update the Risk Register included in the Damal II proposal package.

The Assignment

Under the overall supervision of the IDLO Damal II Field Programme Manager and in close collaboration with the Damal II Programme Team, the consultant will assess conflict sensitivity across Damal II’s target geographies and programme outcomes. The assessment will cover national, regional, district, and community-level conflict dynamics, with particular focus on rural, underserved, urban, and conflict-affected areas. The scope will include:

Conflict dynamics and context

• Identify the main conflict drivers affecting the programme areas, including clan disputes, land and natural resource conflicts, political competition, displacement, revenge cycles, youth unemployment, gender-based violence, migration pressures, social exclusion, and tensions linked to justice and security institutions.
• Analyse how conflict dynamics differ between regions, districts, urban centres, rural areas, IDP communities, minority communities, and border or disputed areas.
• Assess how historical grievances, recent violence, local reconciliation efforts, and shifting political-security dynamics affect justice service delivery.
• Identify conflict connectors, including shared institutions, community leaders, religious actors, women’s networks, youth platforms, ADR actors, legal aid providers, civil society organisations, and existing peacebuilding mechanisms.

Conflict sensitivity of ADR and reconciliation services

• Assess how ADR and reconciliation services may interact with local conflict dynamics.
• Identify risks of clan bias, elite capture, exclusion of women and minorities, harmful customary practices, informal fees, weak accountability, and inconsistent referral of cases beyond ADR mandates.
• Examine whether ADR actors are viewed as legitimate, impartial, accessible, and trusted by different groups.
• Identify how Damal II can strengthen ADR services without reinforcing harmful power structures or excluding vulnerable groups.

Conflict sensitivity of justice-security coordination

• Assess how conflict and insecurity affect relationships between communities, police, prosecutors, courts, ADR actors, local authorities, and civil society.
• Examine whether justice-security coordination platforms could create perceptions of securitisation, political alignment, exclusion, or bias.
• Identify risks linked to information-sharing, case referrals, community policing, local security committees, and coordination with formal justice institutions.
• Recommend ways to make justice-security coordination inclusive, accountable, transparent, and trusted by communities.

Conflict sensitivity of referral systems

• Analyse conflict-related risks affecting referral pathways for cases beyond ADR mandates, including GBV, serious crimes, child protection cases, minority rights issues, land disputes, and cases involving IDPs.
• Assess risks to survivors and vulnerable justice seekers, including retaliation, stigma, confidentiality breaches, pressure to reconcile, or forced settlement.
• Identify practical safeguards to ensure that referral systems are safe, rights-based, gender-responsive, and conflict-sensitive.
• Examine coordination between ADR actors, legal aid providers, police, courts, prosecutors, health services, psychosocial support providers, shelters, and community structures.

Programme-level conflict risks

• Assess conflict risks related to geographic targeting, beneficiary selection, partner selection, cooperative agreements, recruitment, procurement, communications, training, grants, visibility, and resource distribution.
• Identify stakeholders, institutions, relationships, or partnerships that may carry heightened conflict sensitivity risks.
• Recommend mitigation measures for programme planning, implementation, monitoring, and adaptive management.
• Provide practical guidance on how Damal II can avoid doing harm while maximising its contribution to social cohesion and trust-building.

Methodology

The Conflict Sensitivity Assessment will adopt a structured, participatory, conflict-sensitive, gender-responsive, and evidence-based methodology that combines desk research, institutional analysis, stakeholder consultations, and primary field research. The methodology will build on the extensive analytical work undertaken during Damal I, particularly the 2021 Conflict Analysis, ensuring that the assessment updates existing evidence rather than duplicating previous studies. The assessment will apply the principles of conflict sensitivity, Do No Harm, inclusion, and adaptive programming throughout the research process.

The methodology will address key research questions on conflict dynamics, access to justice, alternative dispute resolution (ADR), justice-security coordination, referral pathways, and programme adaptation. It will examine how conflict affects justice service delivery and provide practical recommendations to strengthen the design, implementation, monitoring, and adaptive management of Damal II. The consultant will triangulate evidence from multiple sources to ensure findings are robust, balanced, and grounded in the realities of the programme areas.

Please refer here to the detailed methodology.

Expected Final Report Structure

The final report should include:

• Executive summary.
• Background and purpose of the assessment.
• Methodology, limitations, ethical considerations, and data sources.
• Summary of findings from the 2021 Conflict Analysis and Damal I PEAs.
• Updated conflict context analysis.
• Regional, district, and community-level conflict dynamics.
• Conflict actors, connectors, dividers, and peace capacities.
• Conflict sensitivity analysis across the three Damal II outcomes.
• Risks affecting vulnerable justice seekers.
• Programme risk matrix and mitigation measures.
• Recommendations for targeting, sequencing, partnerships, communications, training, referral systems, ADR support, and justice-security coordination.
• Conflict monitoring tool for programme use.
• Annexes, including tools, stakeholder list, documents reviewed, and anonymised data summaries.

The consultant should have:

• Advanced degree in conflict studies, peacebuilding, law, political science, governance, development studies, sociology, anthropology, or a related field.
• At least 10 years of experience conducting conflict analysis, conflict sensitivity assessments, peacebuilding research, rule of law assessments, or governance analysis in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
• Strong knowledge of Somaliland and/or Somalia, including clan dynamics, customary justice, formal justice institutions, security actors, displacement, gender dynamics, and local conflict systems.
• Demonstrated experience analysing the interaction between justice interventions and conflict dynamics.
• Experience working on ADR, reconciliation, legal aid, GBV referral systems, justice-security coordination, community safety, and access to justice.
• Strong understanding of do-no-harm principles, ethical research, safeguarding, confidentiality, and data protection.
• Excellent facilitation, stakeholder engagement, analytical writing, and communication skills.
• Excellent written and spoken English. Somali language skills are a strong asset.

The consultancy will primarily be home-based, with travel to programme implementation areas and stakeholder locations as required to undertake field research, institutional consultations, and validation workshops. The consultant is expected to undertake missions to selected programme locations, subject to prevailing security conditions and operational requirements.

The consultancy period, level of effort, remuneration, and payment schedule will be specified in the consultancy contract. Payments will be linked to the satisfactory completion and approval of agreed deliverables in accordance with IDLO's contractual procedures.

All work produced under this assignment, including reports, datasets, interview records, analytical tools, presentations, and supporting documentation, shall become the property of IDLO. The consultant shall maintain strict confidentiality regarding all information obtained during the assignment and comply with IDLO's policies on research ethics, data protection, safeguarding, and information security.

IDLO is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We welcome applications from qualified candidates of all backgrounds. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply for IDLO vacancies.

IDLO does not tolerate sexual exploitation or abuse, any kind of harassment, including harassment of a sexual nature, or discrimination. As such, IDLO will conduct careful reference and background checks of all selected candidates as part of its selection process.

Application deadline: 23 August 2026 (23:59hrs Rome Time).