Triple Nexus – Assessing the HDP view of its functionality and implementation

Abstract: What are appropriate and relevant ways for collaboration and coordination between the three sections of aid work, humanitarian, development, and peace? This question has been topical for the aid community for decades when working in places where all three entities are present (Guinote, 2019). It is sometimes rejected, neglected but some times it is also considered and pursued (Hövelmann, 2020). This study aims to assess and analyze the arguments and breeding grounds for the triple nexus approached work in the DRC, the dynamics of promoting and receiving directions in a headquarters-field office relation exploring the challenges and opportunities between the three sections of HDP. Assessments have been done through conducting interviews remotely with people working on-site in the DRC at national or local offices and headquarters in Sweden and Central Europe. By interviewing eleven people with experience from all three HDP sectors, where a few people come from the donor sector, the goal has been to provide a broad picture of the aid community's perspective. This study's findings and inferences are related to funding structures where a more flexible funding system is requested. There are local involvement findings where signs through this study indicate local initiatives have been implementing the nexus approach for years. In environments such as presented in this study, of interrelating groups of people with differences in working culture, there are also challenges of clashing organizational principles, hegemonic approaches, and the ever topical issue of clear and relevant communication presented in the thesis. Through this assessment, power structures are pertinent to analyze to understand how the triple nexus approach can be further implemented. The agency theory will, in this study, be used as an eyeglass to assess these power relations.