Caucasus and Central Asia

International Alert has been working in the Caucasus since 1993 and in Central Asia since 2005. Our work focuses on supporting civil society, individual peace constituencies and business communities to participate in solving problems of peace and conflict in the region.

Our work includes:

Location

Between 4th-6th February 2011, International Alert’s economy and conflict project partners, the Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN), organised a regional beekeepers’ meeting to discuss challenges and possibilities for regional cooperation in the beekeeping sector.

The Third Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum took place in Vienna between 24th and 27th March. During the 4 days of the Forum the Armenian and Azerbaijani participants worked together to develop concrete ideas and proposals for confidence building measures that could contribute to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The Third Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum aimed at contributing to the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict took place in Vienna between 24th-27th March. The Forum, organised by International Alert, marked a mile stone in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process as it brought together for the first time all the international mediators involved in the peacebuilding process as well as a large delegation of civil society representatives from all sides of the conflict divide.

This report aims to map the small arms control practices in five countries of the Black Sea region (which, for the purposes of the report, include Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine). This is the area which has been serving as one of the hubs for arms proliferation, with both legal and illegal arms transfers taking place.

Full report

Over the last ten years the states in the region have had different capacities and different motivations to deal with the SALW issues, and understandably have made different levels of progress in addressing them. As post-Soviet transition states have stabilised, their ability to enforce their international obligations with relation to the export of SALW has improved. The restructuring processes in the defence industries of these states as a result of the end of the Cold War have meant that the number of weapons being produced in this area has reduced.

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This report is a mapping of the situation regarding the control of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in three Central Asian Republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Despite a number of potentially escalating factors, such as authoritarian governance, poverty, ethnic tensions, corruption and resource competition (especially over land and water), Central Asia has remained largely peaceful, with the exception of the 1992-97 civil war in Tajikistan and a number of small-scale clashes, mostly in the Ferghana Valley and the bordering areas.

Small_Amrs_Control_Central_.pdf

Это результат восемнадцати месяцев исследований и анализа, направленных на изучение того, как более полное понимание существующей экономической ситуации в регионе может способствовать решению региональных конфликтов. Это также первая книга, в которой данный вопрос изучается с точки зрения людей, живущих в регионе - авторы являются членами Исследовательской Группы по Экономике и Конфликтам; команда экспертов собранана со всего Южного Кавказа, включая Армению, Азербайджан, Грузию, Турцию, а также Абхазию, Нагорный Карабах и Южную Осетию.

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Executive summary

This is the product of an 18-month period of research and analysis that aimed to explore how a better understanding of the region’s current economic dynamics might contribute to the resolution of its conflicts. It is the first book to examine this topic from the perspectives of those living in the region - the authors are members of the Economy and Conflict Research Group; a pool of experts from throughout the South Caucasus, covering Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and including Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.

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Executive summary

This report sheds light on the nature of the relationship between the oil industry and conflict in a region that has been unstable since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s – with a particular focus on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline (currently being built to transport oil from the Caspian to the Mediterranean). Once fully operational (2006 is predicted) the BTC will have a capacity to deliver 1 million barrels per day to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The report recognises that construction of the pipeline is largely the responsibility of BTC Co.

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This report examines the lessons learned from the three year Monitoring the Implementation of Small Arms Controls (MISAC) project which addressed the barriers to the implementation of international controls on small arms such as the 2001 Programme of Action and the UN Firearms Protocol as well as regional control measures such as the EU Code of Conduct, the OSCE Small Arms Document the OAS Convention and the ECOWAS Moratorium. It assesses the key barriers to implementation as well as drawing lessons learned from those countries and regions which have implemented these controls.

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This collection of papers by researchers from Georgia and Abkhazia offers an analysis of international engagement in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict resolution process since the early 90s, with a specific focus on post-August 2008 and the departure of the UN Observer Mission in 2009. Papers assess the impact of non-governmental peacebuilding initiatives, the effectiveness of the ‘Geneva discussions’ co-facilitated by the UN, EU and OSCE, and explore prospects for Abkhaz engagement with the international community.

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Although Central Asia has remained relatively peaceful in the years since the break-up of the Soviet Union, there is still a considerable potential for conflict in the region. The Strategic Framework for Peacebuilding provides an in-depth analysis of conflict potential in Central Asia, from which it derives a peacebuilding strategy. The report focuses its attention on three states: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

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This paper presents the separate analyses of both Georgian and Abkhaz civil society experts on the need for security guarantees, the reasons why the sides have been unable to agree on them as well as barriers and opportunities for future agreements. In itself, the document reflects the achievement of Alert’s long-term engagement as a facilitator of dialogue between Georgian and Abkhaz civil society leaders. It reflects an advance in the dialogue process while contributing to the debate around security guarantees.

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