Launched in 2017 and managed by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the Minka Fund implements a territorial approach to prevent conflicts and consolidate peace. It finances medium to long-term projects aimed at addressing the drivers and consequences of crises and conflicts, while responding to the needs of affected populations. From 2017 to 2023, AFD invested more than EUR 1.2 billion in 175 Minka operations in four priority crisis areas: the Sahel region, the Lake Chad region, the Central African Republic and the Middle East.
France's Minka Fund, an instrument for peace and resilience
Abstract
Challenge
The year 2023 was marked by a sharp increase in high-intensity armed conflicts amid growing political and security challenges. The climate crisis is further exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and inequalities, negatively impacting peace and security worldwide. Fragility is widely acknowledged as a development challenge, making it all the more necessary to continue providing long-term aid to crisis and conflict situations to effectively address the drivers of fragility. Building on its previous experiences, the AFD has decided to renew the mandate of the Peace and Resilience Fund or “Minka” (phoenix in aboriginal language) in 2024 to pursue resilience-building and conflict prevention efforts in fragile contexts.
Approach
AFD Group has made sustaining peace a key priority in its strategy, encompassing climate and social cohesion. In line with this commitment, the Minka Instrument for Peace and Resilience, was launched in 2017 to tackle factors and consequences of protracted crises while addressing the needs of conflict affected populations.
Managed by AFD, this instrument provides medium to long-term financial support to projects in four crisis areas: the Sahel, the Lake Chad region, the Central African Republic and the Middle East.
Minka contributes to addressing factors and consequences of conflicts in order to consolidate peace before, during and after crises, by adopting a humanitarian-development-peace (HNP) nexus approach, which calls for greater cooperation between humanitarian, development and peace actors. The instrument seeks to increase project efficiency through flexible procedures and project management processes for a swift response to crises.
This approach has allowed AFD to continue operating while facing challenges such as political instability, deteriorating security situations, natural disaster and climate change. To address these multidimensional crises, AFD has made the financing of projects strengthening the resilience of vulnerable populations (marginalised groups, women, youth, forcibly displaced persons and host communities) a priority for 2024.
Figure 1. AFD Minka Commitments 2017-2023: EUR 1,2 billion, breakdown of commitments by initiative
Source: AFD, Minka 2023 Activity report (report soon to be published).
Results
The adoption of a regional approach to crisis management has allowed Minka to better address the dynamics of cross-border crises and conflicts, while promoting regular analysis of the community context.
Since its creation, Minka has played a proactive role in promoting and mainstreaming conflict sensitivity, and through sustained efforts to encourage knowledge sharing and ownership in all AFD projects implemented in crisis and conflict areas.
The implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is a key priority for Minka. AFD supports local organisations protecting the rights of women and children in conflict areas. AFD is supporting the NENGO project, which provides victimes of sexual and gender-based violence in Central African Republic with access to medical, psychological, legal, social, and financial care.
Minka projects have made significant contributions to ensuring equal access to essential services to alleviate social tensions between displaced populations and host communities and contribute to social cohesion. An external evaluation of Minka projects in Lebanon (2022) highlighted that adopting a nexus HDP approach in health sector has allowed Minka projects to address the urgent needs of vulnerable populations while simultaneously building the capacity of national health authorities to equip them with the necessary to navigate the consequences of the Syrian crisis. For instance, the SAQIRH project, implemented by a consortium of local and French humanitarian NGOs has provided host communities and refugees living and Lebanon with equal access to quality primary health care through a more resilient, inclusive and conflict-sensitive national health care system, thus contributing to long-term community-building.
Lessons learnt
Work on conflict and crisis situations calls for greater flexibility: While the regional approach to crisis management has proven to be effective, the spillover of the Sahelian crisis into Gulf of Guinea as well as recent developments in East Africa and in the Middle East highlight the need to encompass new crisis and conflict areas.
Improve coordination and complementarity within the HDP articulation for greater development impact: Crisis and conflict situations require scaling up cooperation between humanitarian, development and peace actors to develop a shared understanding of the context (joint analysis), define collective outcomes and encourage effective programming.
Capacity building of local actors is key to the sustainability of projects: Minka projects provide capacity development to local civil society organisations and local authorities. This commitment is essential to create an enabling environment for greater development impact, project durability and ownership.
Partnerships with research institutes help to refine the desired outcomes of the projects: Each one of the four Minka (Figure 1) initiatives includes a partnership with a research institute, allowing all stakeholders to share context analysis, good practices, and to support early warning systems in order to better fine-tune Minka interventions.
Further information
AFD (2022), Évaluation du Fonds Minka (2017-2020), (Minka Fund Evaluation) https://www.afd.fr/fr/ressources/evaluation-du-fonds-minka-2017-2020.
OECD resources
OECD (2024), OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: France 2024, OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, [forthcoming].
OECD (2021), France Mid-term Review 2021, https://one.oecd.org/document/DCD/DAC/AR(2024)3/8/en/pdf.
OECD, “Engaging in fragile contexts”, Development Co-operation TIPs Fundamentals, https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=1154_1154188-e83x8ymqam&title=Engaging-in-fragile-contexts.
To learn more about France’s development co-operation, see:
OECD, “France”, in Development Co-operation Profiles, https://doi.org/10.1787/29927d90-en.
See more In Practice examples from France here: https://www.oecd.org/development-cooperation-learning?tag-key+partner=france#search.
