Policy paper by Bernardo Mariani, Senior Expert at Conflict Management Consulting (CMC), prepared for Dóchas, September 2026
Conflict is on the rise, while development finance is declining in several major donor countries and is increasingly expected to serve geopolitical, economic and security objectives. These pressures fall hardest on fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS), where humanitarian, development and peace needs are high but commercial and geopolitical returns are limited.
With negotiations under way on the EU's 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), including a proposed €200 billion Global Europe Instrument, this paper examines how the next EU budget will shape the allocation and design of development finance in these settings. Drawing on consultations with civil society organisations, it finds that the EU already has much of the policy architecture it needs – notably the Integrated Approach to Fragility and the Humanitarian–Development–Peace (HDP) nexus – but that implementation remains inconsistent.
The paper warns against diluting development objectives, over-relying on investment-led approaches and blended finance, making the Global Gateway the default framework for fragile contexts, and downgrading conflict prevention and peacebuilding. It sets out ten priorities for the next MFF, including protecting grants as a key financing mechanism, making conflict sensitivity a condition for EU external action, giving local actors a meaningful say throughout EU-funded projects, and measuring long-term outcomes such as resilience, social cohesion and conflict prevention – not only what is easiest to count.
It also considers how Ireland can use its 2026 Presidency of the Council of the EU to build support among Member States for treating development and HDP approaches as investments in global stability and security.
