One of the fundamental changes in dynamic is the shift in perceptions of the sides regarding the source of insecurity. For many years, the Abkhaz feared renewed hostilities from the Georgian side. With the events of August 2008, Georgian society now sees the threat as ultimately coming from Russia. Nevertheless, Georgian-Abkhaz relations and Georgian-Russian relations are closely intertwined, and dialogue between Georgian & Abkhaz societies remains more important than ever to find ways out of the impasse.

Since December 2005, our Georgian and Abkhaz partners are promoting a common agenda, to promote conceptions of broad human security in response to increasingly militaristic approaches to conflict settlement. This is in recognition that insecurity – physical, economic, or cultural - is a contributing factor to aggression and that peace lies in the broader understanding of the interdependence of each society’s human security needs. After August 2008, partners reaffirmed their commitment to dialogue and undertook to broaden it out to include wider sections of society and deepen internal debate on conflict-related issues.

We have been involved in projects with Georgian and Abkhaz civil society since 1997, working to help them create structures that can contribute to building peace, influence governments and the rest of society and prevent further conflict by building confidence between different groups of people. Past projects have included work with war participants, including ex-combatants, people with disabilities, and writers; work with women leaders on building joint advocacy platforms across the conflict divides; and work with young journalists on conflict-sensitive reporting. Together with Georgian and Abkhaz writers, we published a book, ‘South Caucasus Writers about War’, which includes war stories of three conflicts from five literatures: Abkhaz, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Georgian and Ossetian.

We work with Georgian and Abkhaz civil society on internal and joint initiatives, and facilitate cross-conflict dialogue in order to strengthen a common platform recommending human security approaches as an alternative to existing mutually exclusive and even militaristic approaches to conflict resolution.

Abkhaz internal work: Partners focus on targeted human security needs of conflict affected communities, be they residents of western Abkhazia isolated from needed reconstruction and development because of the unresolved nature of the conflict or Georgian returnees to the Gali region. Initiatives include both provision of direct services (such as public advice bureaux addressing individual cases), and public information and policy advocacy. Partners focus on issues of key concern to specific constituencies, such as human rights provisions for Georgian returnees or the challenges of preserving the Abkhaz culture and language in the context of a multi-cultural Abkhazia or issues important to all, such as the fair provision of justice.

Georgian internal work: Until recently, partners focused on the human security needs of Georgians displaced from Abkhazia. For the most part, this community has been living in temporary conditions since 1993 and remain unintegrated into their communities of residence. Initiatives included public debates, grassroots community empowerment, and facilitating a consultative process resulting in policy recommendations to the Georgian government on IDP needs. Since the August 08 war, Georgian internal work focuses on trying to shift the nature of internal debate on the conflict and conflict-related issues, using results of bi-lateral research.

Joint platform development: Alert facilitates partners on both sides of the conflict divide to work together to transform the results of their internal work into concrete and well articulated arguments presenting an alternative to the zero-sum discourse dominant among policy-makers on both sides of the conflict and to the international community. In this way, partners working in their own interest, addressing their own community’s human security priorities can demonstrate concrete confidence building measures, building trust amongst themselves and hopefully among their political leaders in control of the peace process. This strand of work includes civil society dialogue meetings, joint and coordinated publications and thematic discussions. The most recent publication was published in September 2009 ‘Dialogue on Security Guarantees in the context of the Georgian Abkhaz conflict’.

Since 2003, Alert has worked with Armenian and Azerbaijani civil society peace activists to provide the necessary public involvement to underpin any peace agreement reached by the political negotiation process and to identify alternative ideas to invigorate that process if a peace agreement is not reached. On a grassroots level, we engage with communities directly affected by the conflict, and facilitate meetings between communities separated by the ceasefire line. We strengthen coalitions uniting peacebuilding activists to broaden internal debate on the peace process and to engage in dialogue across the conflict divide. The Armenian-Azerbaijani Peacebuilding Forum allows experts from the region to reflect on how political issues affecting each society impact on the peace process. Lastly, working within a consortium of international NGOs, we increase the impact of different peacebuilding initiatives working on the conflict by speaking with a united voice with governments and the donor community.

• Strengthening and expanding networks of civic leaders working across the conflict divide to solve regional problems;
• Enhancing the role of communities in resolving the conflict, including those directly affected by the conflict;
• Building the confidence of peace-oriented civil society organisations to play a strong role within their own societies and participate in dialogue with politicians;
• Creating long-term strategy to sustain civil society engagement in dialogue and work on conflict.

While ordinary people are coping with the situation through adapting to the informal shadow economy, some powerful members of business, political and military elites have substantial vested interests in the status quo. Corruption and conflict are closely linked through a myriad of complex economic and political opportunities arising from the unstable context created by the conflict. These opportunities are then used as footholds for certain groups to climb to the gates of economic/political power and, once there, ward off all attempts to resolve the conflict that is keeping them in power.

Closure of borders and blocked trade routes further complicate the development of economy and prevent mainly the development of small and medium sized business. Although there is some subsistence trading between communities across the conflict divide, relations outside a strictly business framework are characterised by profound hostility and distrust. There is potential, however, for societal divisions and lack of trust in government to be transformed into collaboration through increasing the understanding of shared economic interests across conflict divides. Local businesses are both engines for reconstruction and development, and facilitators of community cohesion and reconciliation. Businesspeople have a unique role to play in forging economic linkages that can both cut through protracted divisions at the community level and communicate the socio-economic agendas of these communities to national policy makers that also have an interest in the business agenda. Furthermore, the subject of economic development provides fertile ground for dialogue between groups and parties which have different views on this issue, but who need to work together if the livelihoods of all peoples in the Caucasus are to improve.

Among others, this project has produced an action research to assist national and international decision-makers in devising strategies to address the negative impact of corruption on conflict resolution and to reduce the impact of conflict on anti-corruption strategies (Corruption and Conflict in the South Caucasus). Furthermore, the project conducted a research on the impact of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline on the conflicts of the region.

Our engagement in analysing the region’s economies brought in the involvement of local businesses. This analysis started off with a year’s research into the link between economy and conflicts in the South Caucasus. The findings from the research were spread to a wider constituency through the publication of the book: From War Economies to Peace Economies in the South Caucasus. The Economy & Conflict Research Group (ECRG) that authored the research was originally formed from a group of researchers based in the region and drawn from the communities representing the different sides of the conflicts. In 2006, together with Alert they went on to establish the Caucasus Business & Development Network (CBDN), which has deepened the engagement of the South Caucasian business communities in cross-conflict dialogue and economic cooperation.

The work of ECRG and CBDN together with Alert have been instrumental in putting economic issues into the peacebuilding agenda of international and national actors in the region.