Giving Compass Take:

• Development and NGO actors are still navigating how to intervene in high conflict zones and face discussions about reform of the development system.

• How can development systems do a better job planning and investing in conflict zones in order to provide the most sustainable help?

• Some opponents of our development sector comment on the lack of flexibility and adaptability of the sector. 

Humanitarian organizations have a limited window of time to show that partnerships and early investment in fragile and conflict-affected states can yield results, according to the Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross Yves Daccord.

As the international humanitarian system looks at how it can reform to respond to the new face of crisis — in which people displaced by conflict are likely to remain away from home for years — earlier development investments must be part of the picture, Daccord told Devex.

Investing or intervening during conflict is truly complex, and it's truly risky. A lot of governments are equipped to do that, and a few humanitarian actors are equipped to do that, but they do that with very specific rules and regulations.

Development actors are not at all equipped for that, nor is the private sector. The big private sector players don't intervene when they see war. They opt out. Here, because of the focus — and let's be clear the focus is on the Middle East and migration — it suddenly creates an interest to think differently. People start to realize they need to invest and they want to invest not to repair it, but to guarantee a minimum of services for people to survive and to stay in their country — to choose to stay.

Read more about the Red Cross' humanitarian groups by Michael Igoe at Devex