
From Alert's 2011 Annual Report
Photo credit: © International Alert/SWORD Images
In the more than 50 years since its independence, Sudan has suffered from recurring civil wars causing extensive suffering and devastation. With the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 hopes rose for peaceful co-existence and development. However, since the secession of South Sudan in 2011, the situation can at best be described as non-war. A positive peace seems to be far away.
International Alert is proud to present a new documentary film from our programme in Burundi, in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Our Voices presents the views of Burundian women about what is needed to foster peace and development in the country.
Burundi emerged from more than a decade of civil war in 2005. During the conflict, over 300,000 people lost their lives and more than 1 million Burundians were forced to flee their homes.
International Alert recently launched a briefing paper titled 'Journalism in Transition: Media, Information flows and conflict in Nepal' produced as a part of the EU-funded project Initiative for Peacebuilding - Early Warning (IFP-EW).
International Alert, ISS and OXFAM organised a conference on "Aid effectiveness in Fragile and Conflict-affected Contexts: the New Deal Framework and Citizens’ Security" on 29th and 30th May 2012 in Addis Ababa.
Photo: © International Alert/Jonathan Banks
In the context of an ongoing programme on Women’s Economic Empowerment, Alert co-organised a regional workshop with the Economic Community of the Great Lakes (CEPGL) and UN WOMEN on April 25th – 27th in Gisenyi, Rwanda.
Photo: 2012 © International Alert/Aubrey Wade
International Alert in cooperation with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, EU Brussels, and AIM Centre for Development Management, convened an expert roundtable discussion on the security implications of climate change in the Philippines on 24th April 2012.
This month we gave a fond farewell to our outgoing Chair of Trustees, Frida Nokken, after six years as a member of Alert’s Board, and welcomed Pierre Schori as our newly elected Chair of Trustees. Pierre has been a member of Alert’s Board since 2010 and Vice-Chair for the past year. The Board of Trustees is responsible for general control and management of the administration of Alert.
Photo by Anna Schori
Conflict Sensitivity Consortium (with support from DFID) has been working since 2008 to enhance the impact of development, humanitarian aid and peacebuilding programming through increased and more effective integration of conflict sensitivity. This experience (drawing from 35 member agencies in 4 countries) has culminated in the production of 'The how to guide to conflict sensitivity'.

International Alert implemented a Training of Trainers in Batken Province (Oblast) of the Kyrgyz Republic between 2nd and 6th April 2012, as part of Alert’s contribution to TASK – an EU-funded conflict mitigation and peacebuiding project in Kyrgyzstan implemented by Alert together with partners Foundation for Tolerance International (FTI) and Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society (CDCS), and 12 other international and national NGOs.
Main image: Trainers from Batken Oblast outside the training facility, Meerim Children’s School in Batken City
International Alert has published a new Economy and Conflict study on the Georgian-Abkhaz context. Prospects for the regulation of trans-Ingur/i economic relations: Stakeholder analysis analyses the views among business communities, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), on the issue of regulating economic relations across the river Ingur/i which largely follows the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict divide.
In early March 2012, seven British Sri Lankans and two British MPs met communities in Puttalam, Anuradhapura, Vavuniya, Killinochchi and Trincomalee in Sri Lanka to improve the understanding of British-Sri Lankan communities in the UK of the rapidly changing circumstances in Sri Lanka following the end of the war.
Photos: © International Alert

Photo: Participants of the roundtable event in Lahore, Pakistan, 27th March 2012