General

This article by Alert's Director of Programmes Phil Vernon is a reply to Oliver Richmond’s ‘Liberal Peace Transitions' for Open Democracy.

International Alert supports a series of small post-conflict initiatives in Burundi. And some of the values that motivate these are also dear to the liberal hearts of the international community.

As part of our partnership with radio station Passion for the Planet this month you can listen to the following interviews:

Can reconciliation after conflict really work? Hear about a boy from Liberia who became friends with his father's killer and a ground-breaking peace and cultural festival that took place in the country.

Plus, when it comes to negotiating peace, why a woman's touch often succeeds where men fail, and why some local chiefs are deferring to the women of the tribe?

As the people of Guinea were preparing to go to the polls to cast their vote to elect their president on 27th June 2010, the West Africa programme in collaboration with the Mediation Support Project – a joint venture between swisspeace and the Center for Security Studies (ETH-Zurich) – ran four mediation training workshops during May 2010 in N’zérékoré, Conakry, Labe and Kankan.

Read our 2009 Impact Report

Listing the peacebuilding NGO’s strategic achievements in the last 12 months, the report is also candid about the challenges the organisation faces, in light of global economic turbulence and the attendant risks to regions prone to violence in many of the 20 plus countries in which they work.

Between 28th June and 1st July, International Alert gathered together Georgian and Abkhaz civil society activists and experts in the latest in a series of “dialogue through research” meetings intended to shed new light on the conflict and explore different ways of thinking about conflict-related issues.

Since the widespread violence broke out in the south of the country in April and June this year, International Alert has sent staff members to Kyrgyzstan on three separate missions in the past two months. Their purpose was assessment and to start to engage in face to face meetings with politicians, religious leaders and leaders of civil society groups from all sides of the conflict. On this basis, we have put together a comprehensive peacebuilding plan for the country with three key strands:

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 just two years’ time, elections in Sierra Leone will mark a decade since the end of the bloody civil war. Since the war was officially declared over, there have been some notable achievements. The country’s first peaceful and democratic handover of power from one political party to another took place in 2007. Free health care for all pregnant and breastfeeding women has been introduced to combat Sierra Leone’s alarming maternal mortality rate.

Kyrgyzstan is slowly moving forward after the June 2010 violence in the south of the country that left hundreds dead. On 10th October, parliamentary elections were held in a peaceful manner and characterised as relatively fair. 56 per cent of those with the right to vote went to the polls and cast their vote for one of the 29 parties contesting the 120 seats in the Parliament. According to the OSCE and European Parliament election observers, the elections ‘constituted a further consolidation of the democratic process’*.

PRESS RELEASE

Brussels, 29th November 2010

A roundtable on Georgian-Abkhaz relations organised by International Alert took place in Brussels on 29th November with experts from the South Caucasus and representatives of European institutions and the UN.

Dialogue participants shared their analysis of past and current policies and future prospects in relation to the conflict and its regional implications. Participants discussed what different actors and sides to the conflict, in particular civil society, can contribute to conflict transformation and resolution.

Background

The Republic of Guinea in West Africa is rich in natural resources, but its people remain poor. Guineans have endured decades of autocratic governance, but they currently have an opportunity to turn a new corner towards a more democratic future. International Alert has worked there for the past few years, helping Guineans seize this opportunity for change and with a particular focus on holding dialogues where people can discuss and envisage practical ways forward.

Over 100 students debated youth policy and ways to prevent the growth of radicalism as part of an International Alert project in Tajikistan. In October 2010, International Alert worked with a number of talented students who facilitated five roundtable debates aimed at fostering dialogue and a common understanding of the causes and remedies of the religious radicalisation of youth in Tajikistan.

The West Africa Programme at International Alert (IA) has been actively working with partners from the region for many years in seeking to transform conflicts in the area through projects that contribute to bringing about social justice and peace. We are very much aware that other actors have also played a role in conflict transformation in the region. This overview is designed to provide an insight into the history of IA’s work there, particularly since the inception of the West Africa Programme in 1998.

Overview

International Alert welcomes the opportunity from the European Commission to comment on the
“provisional draft non-paper” on EIDHR programming for 2005-2006. Below we have outlined some
recommendations for thematic and sub-thematic priorities, for indicators and some lessons learned of
implementing EIDHR funding which we hope will contribute to this process.

Full report

International Alert works for peace in war-torn and war-threatened countries in Africa, Asia and Eurasia. In 2003 we continued to work on more than forty projects - both with our partners in regions affected by conflict and at the advocacy and policy level.

Review