Knowledge Matters – Community Engagement
This issue of Knowledge Matters showcases the various ways Concern engages communities in our development and humanitarian work.
Read our 2019 annual report
Concern's objectives, activities and achievements in 2019 can be found in our new annual report.
Read the reportBreaking the cycle of conflict, hunger and human suffering
This report shares the voices and lived experiences of those most affected by conflict around the world.
Tcharow comite communautaire daction discuss the results of the vote on impact and frequency of hazards in order to prioritise the most important ones in Chad. Photo: Concern Worldwide.
The accounts shared in this report highlight the destructive and complex consequences of conflict in its many forms. These include direct experiences of violence and its devastating impact on displacement and food security, alongside more indirect, detrimental effects on community resilience, cohesion, and gendered social relations.
These accounts lead to three conclusions, common to both hunger and displacement, and reflecting the harsh realities and enormous challenges faced by communities in conflict-affected contexts around the world:
- Conflict’s reach goes far beyond the scope of physical violence alone, transforming (and often destroying) economies, social networks, and household support systems far from the frontlines.
- Conflict is gendered: it affects women, men, youth and people from vulnerable groups in starkly different ways that often reinforce existing inequities.
- Conflict’s legacy lasts much longer than violence alone, affecting the likelihood of return and the success of reintegration and reconciliation long after stability is re‑established.
