Our Views

By Clémence Bessière

At the end of November, 2,000 representatives of governments, international organisations and NGOs convened in Busan as the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. Just before the meeting we proposed five criteria by which to judge its outcome as far as conflict-affected and fragile countries are concerned

Our five criteria were:

Letter published in The Times on 14 January 2010

Letter published in The Guardian on 27 January 2010

From Dan Smith’s blog, which can be found at www.dansmithsblog.com.

A permanent memorial for Jean Charles de Menezes was recently unveiled to a small crowd at Stockwell underground station in south London, near International Alert’s office. Mis-identified as a terrorist suspect, he was killed by London police officers on 22 July 2005.

Feelings, accountability and errors

Every year we make resolutions in order to encourage ourselves to do more of the things we want to do, and less of the things that we know we shouldn’t. Even in these days of economic uncertainty, the significance of a modest amount here can make a huge amount there – where people are suffering from violent conflict.

This year, let International Alert help you to make those changes. Linking your goal to helping others can help you stick to it and, more importantly, achieve it.

Get fitter

Taken from Dan Smith’s blog, which can be found at www.dansmithsblog.com

It can be safely predicted that ideas and the terms of discussion about international development will change fundamentally in the coming five years.  A major policy statement from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) marks an important milestone on this road, though it’s a long way from being the endpoint. In this very long post, I explore the White Paper and a way of taking DFID’s logic forward.

We are pleased to launch two new practice notes in the Peacebuilding Essentials for Economic Development Practitioners series. This forms part of International Alert’s project Strengthening the Economic Dimensions of Peacebuilding.

Socio-Economic Reintegration of Ex-Combatants explains what economic development planners and practitioners can do to support the socio-economic reintegration of former combatants.

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.

Private sector development in conflict-affected environments: key resources for practitioners

Alert’s Canan Gunduz and Joost Van Der Zwan co-authored this new Donor Committee on Enterprise Development guide on Private Sector Development (PSD) in conflict-affected environments.