Iraq is a middle-income country emerging from decades of conflict and large-scale displacement, with over one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) still affected. Amid declining humanitarian funding and a planned phase-out of emergency aid, Iraq has faced the challenge of shifting toward development while ensuring that vulnerable groups are not left behind. The Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus has served as a transition mechanism, helping coordinate the move from immediate humanitarian response to government-led development and peace initiatives. By focusing on stabilization and durable solutions for displacement, the Nexus maintained continuity as funding, coordination structures, and humanitarian presence diminished.
Stabilization and solutions for displacement have been the primary operational entry points for the Nexus in Iraq. UNDP’s Stabilization Programme restored essential services, infrastructure, livelihoods, and security in liberated areas, enabling nearly five million displaced Iraqis to return sustainably and reducing ongoing humanitarian needs. The Durable Solutions architecture provided a platform linking humanitarian, development, and peace actors, while area-based approaches supported reintegration, social cohesion, and local recovery. Despite these efforts, the transition has been challenged by sharply declining international funding, limited government capacity, and political fragmentation between federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, highlighting the need for stronger local-level coordination.
Iraq’s experience demonstrates that the HDP Nexus is most critical when humanitarian aid recedes but needs persist. Without a practical and well-resourced approach, the withdrawal of humanitarian support risks deepening vulnerabilities, fueling social tensions, and undermining returns and reintegration. UNDP has played a central role in operationalizing the Nexus in Iraq by sequencing stabilization, development, and peacebuilding efforts, supporting social cohesion programming, co-leading the Durable Solutions architecture, and restoring state presence and legitimacy.
In Ukraine, the HDP Nexus has been applied in a context of active conflict with functioning national and local authorities, extensive humanitarian needs, and high levels of development-focused aid. Early engagement with Nexus actors allowed for investment in recovery while maintaining social cohesion and protecting institutional and human capital. Progress has been most evident in recovery- and solutions-oriented coordination, with the Durable Solutions architecture enabling evidence-based prioritization across national, oblast, and Hromada levels. Joint assessments and indices, such as the Rapid Damage and Needs Assessments and the Social Cohesion and Reconciliation Index, helped shift focus beyond immediate humanitarian needs toward recovery and resilience.
Despite strong funding and coordination, Ukraine illustrates ongoing challenges in aligning humanitarian and development financing and institutionalizing the Nexus. UNDP has played a key role by supporting government-led frameworks, facilitating joint assessments and data sharing, and mobilizing financial support for recovery. Its engagement in recovery programming, social cohesion, displacement solutions, and energy sector rehabilitation has helped bridge emergency response and long-term development and peacebuilding. The case shows that the Nexus can advance recovery and resilience even during high-intensity conflict, provided that coordination, financing, and planning are aligned.
Yemen represents a protracted crisis where the HDP Nexus has been essential amid active conflict, widespread displacement, institutional collapse, and food insecurity. The approach has facilitated alignment and coherence of interventions through joint analyses, working groups, and area-based programmes. Localized planning in governorates like Taiz and Lahj has allowed for adaptive interventions, sequencing humanitarian, development, and peace efforts, and engagement with local authorities. Flagship initiatives, such as the Enhanced Rural Resilience Programme, demonstrate that multi-agency collaboration can deliver tangible community-level results.
Implementation of the Nexus in Yemen has been uneven due to inconsistent high-level prioritization, limited government ownership, and constrained funding, which limits the scale-up of flexible, area-based approaches. The peace pillar remains largely confined to social cohesion initiatives without a sustained political settlement. Yemen highlights both the necessity and feasibility of Nexus approaches in protracted crises, showing that cooperation among HDP actors and locally anchored strategies are critical for reducing fragmentation, improving sequencing, and addressing root causes alongside immediate needs. UNDP has been a central driver in Yemen, providing leadership, analytical tools, and policy guidance, while implementing gender-responsive programmes across the humanitarian, development, and peace pillars.
Across Iraq, Ukraine, and Yemen, the operationalization of the HDP Nexus demonstrates that effective transitions from humanitarian aid to development and peace require sequencing of interventions, coordination across multiple actors, investment in institutional capacity, and linking solutions to local realities. UNDP’s engagement across these contexts illustrates the value of a Nexus approach in reducing vulnerabilities, supporting returns and reintegration, protecting development gains, and bridging emergency response with long-term resilience and peacebuilding.
