by Mark Camburn

Peace sits at the heart of SCIAF’s work – a fundamental component of what SCIAF, and the wider Caritas family of Catholic aid agencies, promotes the world over. Put simply, there can be no integral human development without peace.

In SCIAF’s new 10-year Strategy (‘A Better World is Possible for All …’ 2026-2035), we sharpen our focus on peacebuilding, by fully adopting a triple-nexus approach to our overseas work. This allows us to situate all of our overseas work on a spectrum between humanitarian – integral human development – peacebuilding: where integral human development sits at the centre, but is not achievable or sustainable without all humanitarian needs being met, and without lasting peace for all.  This new approach will ensure that we fully consider peace (and justice) issues as we design our country strategies and programmes, together with our local partners across the world. SCIAF has a long track-record of working towards peace and justice with many of our partner organisations in countries such as Cambodia, Colombia, DRC, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.  This experience will feed into our ways of working as we move forward. SCIAF’s work in Colombia, a place very close to my heart, helps illustrate this approach in action.

Mark Camburn is SCIAF’s Director of Integrated Human Development

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Photo of Claretian Brother Marcial who brokers peace between communities and armed groups in Chocó, courtesy of SCIAF.