Ethics of Wartime: Context Sensitivity as a Cross-Cutting Principle of Projects

Many wonderful initiatives aimed at making the world a better place or providing assistance to those in need often disappoint in their results or have unintended negative effects. Even if a project or program is written in the best possible way and risks are accounted for, the actual effect of the planned activities can yield completely unpredictable results. This is precisely why the context-sensitive approach was developed to foster awareness of the impacts of project activities/interventions on the environment and to understand how to plan accordingly.

Why Be Context-Sensitive

The regional fund aimed to assist forcibly displaced people in distress and organized the distribution of humanitarian aid exclusively to internally displaced families. In a short time, with money from a local political sponsor, they procured food and essential items, while children received incredible gifts that local families had never seen. Later, the IDP families, along with their children, were taken separately for a vacation in the Carpathians. However, when they returned to the host community, they encountered coldness and irritation. This is one of hundreds of typical examples of how good intentions and the desire to help can lead to conflicts and put people at risk.

Conflict- and context-sensitive approaches are key in international development, humanitarian work, and conflict resolution strategies. Institutions like the European Union integrate conflict analysis into foreign policy. The UN considers conflict sensitivity a fundamental principle of peacebuilding: any interventions must adapt to changing contexts to minimize harm and enhance resilience. We use the term context sensitivity because this approach is much broader in the Ukrainian context than merely analyzing conflicts at various levels.

What Context-Sensitive Analysis Looks Like

Context sensitivity is a cross-cutting approach designed to integrate into existing systems of activity rather than creating a cumbersome overlay that requires a separate manager. Since it also involves awareness of actions and steps, as well as constant monitoring, it serves as a lens through which all team members assess the daily consequences of actions and their potential impact on the environment and context in which they work.

Overall, context-sensitive analysis (which is a key tool and element of the context-sensitive approach) is carried out in several stages, but can have additional blocks or a shortened version. Here are the key components:

• Mapping the Context: Reflects the main social groups present, connections between them, the strength of potential influence and resources, lines of cooperation and conflict, etc.

• Analysis of Dividers and Connectors: Factors of influence that can be assessed through indicators, allowing any initiative to be considered in terms of its impact on levels of cohesion and potential peace.

• Profile of Critical Details: Basic questions that allow for thoughtful consideration of the next steps and aspects of the project.

• Actions and Behaviors with Consequences: Analysis of resource transfer and effects of influence (unforeseen effects, the analysis of which can significantly mitigate future risks). The next dimension includes hidden ethical messages and the behavior of representatives of the initiative from the perspective of potential stakeholders/beneficiaries.

  
  

All these tools are necessary to broaden one’s understanding of the context and account for all possible aspects. The final stage of analysis becomes understanding the impact of external circumstances, calculating one’s own influence, and its routine integration into the project or program cycle.

Integrating Context-Sensitive Analysis into the Project Cycle

In conditions of war and the ongoing transformations of Ukrainian society, it is important, first of all, to recognize the significance of a context-sensitive approach for preventing unintentional harm, and secondly, to implement this approach systematically rather than as a one-off action. True effectiveness of interventions is only possible when context-sensitive analysis and context sensitivity as an approach become an integral part of every stage of the project: from planning to monitoring, allowing for the establishment of sustainable solutions, preventing negative effects of interventions, and strengthening trust between all stakeholders.

Context-sensitive analysis is structured to be a constant companion of the team: from the planning of an initiative or project (evaluating previous actions, the context where work is planned, experiences of other players, etc.) to full implementation and evaluation after completion. It is important that context-sensitive analysis does not become a formality at the beginning or end of a project, but rather accompanies the team throughout the entire implementation, serving as a working principle that helps anticipate possible risks or enhance successes.

What We Offer

Context sensitivity is a characteristic of conscious work on social initiatives of any kind, becoming an ethical principle especially during wartime. This approach helps bring all external factors of influence and possible consequences of one’s actions into the realm of awareness, without which quality processes and results cannot be imagined.