Citizenship and Governance

International Alert, together with partners Equal Access Nepal and Youth Action Nepal organised a series of interaction programmes with members of the Constituent Assembly (CA) of Nepal and representatives of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The programmes were aimed at advocating for issues and concerns that came out of a research and dialogue process, part of a three-year initiative funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which seeks to contribute to building and fostering a constructive role for youth by ensuring their access to security and justice in Nepal.

Since May 2010, Burundi has embarked in a marathon electoral season, with five successive elections (at district, presidential, legislative, and village level) over a period of five months.

In the district elections on May 24th, the ruling party won a landslide victory. Despite some minor irregularities, international and national election observers stated the elections were largely fair, while opposition parties claimed they were fraudulent and withdrew from the election process.

Acknowledging that the rehabilitation of ex-combatants is critical to sustainable peace in Nepal, which is in turn crucial for long-term economic development, a recent workshop of private sector leaders in Kathmandu resulted in a display of willingness and openness towards providing support to ex-combatants, when and as required by the government and political parties.

International Alert is proud to present our new publication on "International Engagement in the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict Resolution Process", a collection of papers from Georgian and Abkhaz researchers analysing the effectiveness of international engagement in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict resolution process, with a specific focus on the post-August 2008 period.

In the lead-up to the next global summit on climate change in Cancun, Mexico, International Alert along with the Delegation of the European Union in Nepal held a dialogue on climate change, security and governance on 3rd September 2010 in Kathmandu.

International Alert is seeking to build on previous initiatives to inform and advance EU thinking on the reintegration of ex-combatants into post-conflict societies and economies. This is the second of two briefing papers produced as part of a year-long initiative aimed at reinvigorating the debate on reintegration. Based on research in Burundi, Liberia and Nepal, it discusses why the lessons of past reintegration programmes are not being learned and what implications this has for future EU disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programming.

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Africahas suffered a total of one third of global armed conflicts over the past decade. The bottom 27 countries in the UNDP’s human development index are African and there are an estimated 6.1 million refugees and 20 million internally displaced persons across the continent. Now, more than ever, an effective EU-Africa partnership is required to address the underlying and proximate causes of conflict, insecurity, instability and underdevelopment to effect a demonstrative, positive and sustainable impact on the ground.

Briefing

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.

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Ce présent rapport constitue une vue d’ensemble de la prolifération illicite des armes légères et de petit calibre (ALPC) en Afrique de l’Ouest et se concentre sur la mise en oeuvre des instruments sous-régionaux de contrôle d’armes. A cet égard, le Moratoire de la Communauté Economique des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) sur l’Importation, l’Exportation et la Fabrication des Armes Légères en Afrique de l’Ouest (Moratoire de la CEDEAO) se distingue en tant que plate-forme principale sur laquelle le contrôle des armes dans la sous-région est fondé.

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The European Security Strategy (ESS) commits the EU to using a wide range of instruments in order to prevent violent conflict. Its comprehensive nature is one of its strengths, however, greater analysis of how the EU’s “hard” and “soft” instruments will be applied during the implementation of the Strategy is needed. There is the risk that Member States will pay increasing attention to developing military aspects of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, rather than civilian, and preventive responses, without which, military engagement is counter-productive.

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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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Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the continued threat posed by terrorist organisations, have presented significant security challenges to the international community.

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This report seeks to document governmental and civil society activity in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal with regard to the control of SALW. The case studies provide an overview of the main sources of SALW proliferation. The report also aims to assess the current national legislation on SALW, the implementation of SALW control policies, as well as the role of national governmental and nongovernmental structures in addressing the issue of SALW proliferation in the three countries.

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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.

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In the post-Cold War period, the nature of conflicts has changed, with conflict moving closer to civilians as combatants, victims or (perceived) supporters of one or the other faction. International development and humanitarian NGOs that seek to address the needs of civilians have become operational in more war zones than ever before and, while conflict has always been a pervasive feature of their work in many areas of the world, they have become more aware of the inevitable two-way relationship between conflict and their programmes, staff and partners.

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