Practical application of OECD 'Do No Harm' framework

The OECD 'Do No Harm' report is fairly widely referred to, but how much is it used in a practical sense? Do you know of any good practice examples of where country government or donor programs that have built a 'Do No Harm' analysis in to their designs or implementations of programs in the region? It would be interesting to see how they have applied the 'Do No Harm' framework.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 25/05/2010 13:12:35

Peace journalism is a response to the Do No Harm (DNH) agenda. Some prefer to call it ‘conflict-sensitive journalism’, and one of its chief exponents is Ross Howard, a Canadian former journalist who is, I have heard, working with UNESCO on a conflict-sensitive journalism training curriculum.

Ross has written about the growing awareness by governments and donors, not only of the harm media can potentially do in conflict, but also of their potential for peace-building:

“The influence of the media has caught the eye of international agencies and NGOs closely involved in peace-building during the last decade. Over ten years an estimated one billion dollars has been invested in interventions relating to the media in conflict-ridden societies. There is an emerging belief that the media may well be the most effective means of conflict resolution and preventing new wars”.

This added a further consideration to what was previously viewed as a staple of assistance to societies in transition, namely the promotion of free media and the free flow of information. When applied in situations of conflict, however, this is problematical. A few years ago, a team at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) convened a group of contributors with considerable field experience to consider and analyse some of the problems. Their report, Why Templates for Media Development do not work in Crisis States, can be downloaded here: www.crisisstates.com/download/publicity/crisis_report_low.res.pdf

From the Executive Summary:

“The creation and sustaining of independent media is central to theories of democratisation. However, in the case of fragile states, it may also be misguided and potentially dangerous to assume that encouraging the creation of free and independent media will automatically strengthen civil society, or help establish a democratic system that will hold governments accountable”.

Interestingly, it also records participants’ views on “the effect of Western media’s behaviour, during recent military interventions, on attitudes towards prescriptions for media reform”.

None of this is an argument for ditching press freedom. Advocates of open media are often also peace advocates, and their ability to find and exploit spaces for free expression is an example of what the DNH approach calls “local capacities for peace”, that need to be fostered and empowered.

So the onus is on finding ways to encourage the use of free expression to promote peace, rather than as an end in itself. Karel Nordenstreng argues that this is implicit in the famous twin ‘Articles 19’ of the UDHR and ICCPR, providing for communication rights. He points to the UNESCO Mass Media Declaration of 1978, which calls on “mass media [to make] a leading contribution... [to] The strengthening of peace and international understanding, the promotion of human rights and the countering of racialism, apartheid and incitement to war”. And he points out that this is, indeed, in keeping with the organisation’s “constitutional mission... not to promote the free flow [of information] as such... but to do it for the purpose of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples for the higher cause of peace and security”.

To add peace as an aim of intervening in media and communication domains is therefore both essential to a DNH approach, and in keeping with the context in which the international community twice decided to prescribe communication rights as part of the International Bill of Rights.

My answer to a previous question regarding peace journalism, recounting the introduction of, and reception for, peace journalism in Indonesia and the Philippines, can therefore be seen as an example of the DNH approach in practice. I reflect further in the article stored here:
http://www.crise.ox.ac.uk/copy/Oxford%20Policy%20Conference/Inside%20Indonesia%2066%20-%20Peace%20journalism%20in%20Poso.htm

The new Do No Harm quarterly newsletter can be downloaded from here:
http://www.cdainc.com/cdawww/project_profile.php?pid=DNH&pname=Do%20No%20Harm

And embedded within it is a link to download a pdf copy of Ross Howard’s training manual, titled simply, Conflict-sensitive Journalism (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/OCHA-6LU3P6/$FILE/IMPACS.pdf?OpenElement), a publication jointly sponsored by I-M-S (Denmark) and IMPACS (Canada).