 135 million people worldwide are acutely food insecure, half live in conflict affected environments. Reducing hunger and poverty and supporting livelihoods in fragile contexts is challenging and complex work. Community conflicts severely impact livelihood opportunities and worsen food insecurity. These, as well as competition over natural resources, can also drive conflicts, especially at the local level. Here's an example. Say a new watering hole for cattle was built for local pastoralists and although many similar watering holes had been built elsewhere, the new watering hole led to local tensions and even fighting. Why? Because the watering hole had been built on grazing land that could not be accessed by all local cattle owners. Local customs and relationships between different pastoralist groups who had a history of conflict determined who had access and who did not. The excluded cattle owners thought it unfair the other group benefited and reacted violently. Building the watering hole in that location was conflict insensitive. FAO in all its work must endeavour to do no harm. This means minimising any possible negative effects of assistance to people and communities. Otherwise our activities and projects can create division and can contribute to local tensions. Any intervention can fuel conflict simply by not understanding or taking into account the local context and can do unintentional harm. If emergency cash distribution means that people need to travel across communities that have unresolved tensions, it can make an already difficult situation worse. This could even put people's safety at risk. When only displaced people receive assistance, host communities can perceive that they are being ignored. This is another example of conflict insensitivity. By supporting agricultural livelihoods, building resilience and improving natural resource management, we can support communities and underpin local peace. When done well, such an approach can provide a space for dialogue and collaborative solutions and in doing so make conflict and violence less appealing. It can also reduce tensions over natural resources such as land and water and enhance local capacities for conflict resolution. For example, pastoralist groups working together to vaccinate their animals but who usually compete over grazing can be an entry point to identify areas for dialogue, building trust and reducing tensions. FAO programs need to be conflict sensitive. There are three key steps. Step one, context analysis. Conduct a context analysis to identify conflict lines in and between communities as well as potential drivers of peace. Understand different perspectives, be it farmers, elders, women or local authorities. Step two, conflict sensitive recommendations. Now that you see the potential impacts of the proposed interventions and how they could interact with the local context using a program clinic approach, identify concrete conflict sensitive recommendations. Step three, getting the activities right. To reduce negative impacts and maximize peace opportunities, amend activities that have the potential to do harm. Identify activities that could contribute to local peace and influence the design of monitoring and evaluation frameworks. Conflict sensitive programming is fundamental. FAO's interventions and activities must be informed and shaped by an understanding of contextual dynamics. This means FAO's support to people and communities will not only do no harm but can also do more good and contribute to local peace.