Breaking Down Silos: Addressing Conflict and Climate Change in the Philippines

By Chris Mawhorter, Research Associate for the Program on Resilient Communities at HHI

In the final hours before I returned to the Ninoy Aquino Airport in Manila, members of a grassroots peacebuilding nonprofit explained to me, “Everyone who works in Mindanao [Philippines] has an anecdote about conflict and climate change, but no one has a real explanation for why it matters, and no one coordinates to address it.” This was the punchline for the intense divide — or “silos” — I observed throughout my time in the Philippines talking to professionals across fields of humanitarian, development, climate science and activism, agriculture, and peacebuilding.

I heard many stories confirming that my research on the nexus between climate change and conflict was relevant, but when I asked about how agencies dealt with this nexus, most reported a lack of formal response or coordination.

Interestingly, many people working in peacebuilding, humanitarian relief, climate science or activism do not have siloed careers. I met people working on climate adaptation for agriculture who had worked in humanitarian relief; peacebuilders who used to be environmental activists; humanitarians with peacebuilding backgrounds. The networks ran deep and wide. Individual experience was not siloed to one area.

Everyone was talking about climate and conflict. Many had spent time working on both climate and conflict. Everyone was convinced they were living climate and conflict. Yet no one was coordinating a response.

Stories and silos

I arrived hours before the Taal Volcano in Batangas exploded south of Manila. The scale and immediacy of the humanitarian response and the dissemination of high-quality, science-based updates two to three times per day from Philippine volcanologists (PhiVOLCS) was truly impressive.

Preparedness for natural disasters is a well-worn tradition in Philippine society, on vivid display during my visit. In one of the most disaster-prone nations in the world, climate change is at the forefront of people’s minds.

Mindanao hosts a massive police and military presence, two long-running insurgencies, and many local splinter groups and social factors that create a complex ecosystem of violence. Less frequent typhoons and fertile soils support 40% of the total agricultural output of the country, along with 60% of its export crops — coconut, cacao, coffee, banana, and more. The fact that this production co-occurs with widespread malnutrition attests to a legacy of colonialism and political exclusion that continues to this day.

In interview after interview, I heard stories about environmentally fragile areas in Mindanao: the Linguasan Marsh, a biodiversity hotspot in the low-lying, highly productive central plains along the border of the newly declared Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM); the islands of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi (also in BARMM), where militant splinter groups, creeping sea level rise and unpredictable rainfall form a dangerous intersection; and the increasingly typhoon-prone eastern coast where the NPA insurgency continues.

Interestingly, people described environmental stressors producing livelihood and food insecurity, as a crucial cause — direct or indirect — of violence. People also spoke of climate change adaptation projects feeding local tensions, a flood wall built in one community flooding a neighbor, for example. Or security policy affecting projects — a humanitarian NGO’s small climate-conflict project halting because a local partner was “red-flagged” by the government for alleged ties to extremist groups.

The Three Silos

Despite overlapping impacts, siloed responses persist. Three clear silos emerged in implementation and response: humanitarian actors, peacebuilding and conflict monitoring groups, and development actors focused on climate change adaptation, especially in agriculture.

Agriculture-focused groups consider the impact of a wide array of social variables, but not conflict processes, when considering how to support communities affected by climate change. Peacebuilding and conflict monitoring groups acknowledge the effect of natural disasters and environmental damage on their work, but often consider natural hazards outside of their scope. Peacebuilding organizers acknowledge limited coordination, even with former colleagues in climate justice organizations.

Within donor and relief agencies, many run multiple, simultaneous projects in Mindanao on climate change adaptation and peacebuilding, but feel that coordination with colleagues sitting just meters away could improve. Humanitarian agencies work with populations continually displaced by both climate change and conflict, and aspire to shift focus to prevention of root causes.

There are multiple reasons for this breakdown. Many cited organizational mandate. “We do [conflict/climate change/agriculture/disaster relief/etc.]” is a common refrain, with good reason.

Additionally, storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions roll through the Philippines so regularly that agencies are often addressing multiple events at once; the response for one starting as a response for several others is ongoing. I joined a humanitarian system briefing on the Taal Volcano where Taal was the first agenda item, followed by two typhoons and two earthquakes still presenting active needs months after their immediate impact. This stretches the relief and attention budgets for already-strained responders. In a highly cyclical environment like this, targeting underlying causes is extremely difficult. (Add a pandemic and it’s near impossible.)

Funding is also a concern for peacebuilding and development organizations. Many feel they are chasing funding constantly, and rarely incentivized to prioritize collaboration to address cross-cutting issues. Specialization is not just an organizational culture issue, it is a necessary trait in a competitive field. Aside from inertia or incentives, technical knowledge plays a role. Despite some overlapping career paths, most professionals prefer the lens of their own toolset. This makes sense, as well. One can only fix so many issues at a time, better to focus on the consequential ones.

However, experience has proven narrow approaches not only ineffective, but potentially harmful. Agricultural development specialists lamented the simplified thinking behind the Green Revolution of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s — in which the Philippines played an important role. These specialists emphasized time and again that their work today amounted to overcoming the disastrous social and environmental effects wrought by hyper-focus on yield improvement.

Key Actions: Breaking down silos by activating networks

As momentum builds towards integrating programming, much work remains, and urgency grows. Three key actions can speed up the process.

1. Donors have unique leverage to spur more ambitious collaboration. While this is happening in efforts to bolster climate and disaster resilience, peacebuilding presents an unfilled gap. Explicitly including conflict analysis in climate change and disaster risk planning can ensure that projects do no harm and effectively build sustainable governance. It can also put actors in a room to think critically and in an integrated way about the challenges communities face. Our research indicates that the networks and expertise for this type of collaboration already exist. But this fertile ground will not flower unless properly tended. Reversing the need to specialize for funding reasons can allow the specialized knowledge and on-the-ground experience that peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian actors already possess to cross-pollinate and flourish.
2. Academics and analysts, including those working on program development and implementation, must prioritize research that goes beyond the current literature on environmental and political fragility. Past studies have often prioritized large-N datasets with highly simplified conceptual frameworks to fit tidy regressions. Statistical significance in this case does not indicate operational significance. The experience of actors on the ground make clear that environmental stressors and conflict occur in an intricate overlap that defies the use of instrumental variables like rainfall or heat to make causal claims. Community-centered, qualitative research is needed to turn these experiences from anecdote into actionable analysis for the people most affected.
3. Finally, practitioners in all fields must continue to break down silos in their own programming and activate existing networks. While advocating for more appropriate funding or applicable research is important, there is already capacity to undertake innovative work. Donor agencies reported tremendous benefits from intra-office collaboration, such as adopting do no harm frameworks for CCA and DRR activities drawn up by colleagues focused on conflict prevention. Humanitarian groups are well positioned to create collaborative spaces for both experts and grassroots advocates in peacebuilding and environmental change, where innovative interventions can be nurtured and tested. Our research makes clear there is a wealth of experience to be tapped, even if it starts with an informal chat over coffee (perhaps virtually for now).