Our areas of programme activity emphasise a focus on the Sri Lankan regions, especially the depressed or socially excluded sectors of rural society, where much of the potential for continued violence resides. Alert’s focus is on addressing the socio-economic drivers of conflicts besetting the country.

Our activity consists of four components, which are:
(a) the mobilising of regional business leadership in conflict sensitive business interventions and mediations in the regions;
(b) the analysis of regional socio-economic conditions and development policy gaps; (c) the mobilising of national and diaspora business leaderships in region-level engagements, and
(d) the facilitation of policy dialogue on youth exclusion issues.

At the same time, Alert Sri Lanka is now beginning to link up with Alert’s involvements in other parts of South Asia as we develop a platform for a contribution towards peace and stability at regional level. Currently our work in Sri Lanka is built on the following interconnected programmatic strands, namely:

The Business for Peace Alliance (BPA)
Alert supports a network of district-based Chambers of Commerce across the island which brings divided communities together in, what is now, a well organised movement. The BPA has grown, with Alert Sri Lanka’s accompaniment for the past six years, to be an effective organisation of regional business leaders concerned with the issues of social, cultural and economic exclusion that continue to divide Sri Lankan society outside the more affluent metropolitan areas.

Promoting ‘strategic’ Corporate Social Responsibility activism
Alert engages with the country’s national and regional business leadership in building their capacity for a ‘strategic and conflict sensitive CSR’ activism that targets those social and economic aspects of Sri Lankan life that spark social friction and conflict. This engagement includes the design of CSR ‘best practice’ benchmarks and incentives, university training for corporate CSR executives and, the building of a ‘CSR for peacebuilding’ knowledge resources centre.

Engaging the Sri Lankan Diaspora business sector - BIZPACT
We have begun networking with concerned expatriate business people and business leaders in the Sri Lankan Diaspora who are seeking ways to contribute to the creation of regional stability in their homeland with a special focus on ameliorating social problems and widening regional social disparities in access to resources, employment and education. It is hoped that collaboration by Diaspora business people in interventions in their homeland will help build intra- as well as inter-ethnic bridges in the Diaspora itself, thereby helping diffuse ethnic militancy both abroad and at home.

While the overall program strand encompasses key functions areas such as analysis of development policies, exclusion of social groups, globalization and conflict impact assessments, the current focus reside mainly on critically analysing socio-economic issues related to youth. The engagement on youth evolves from interventions that seek to integrate youth concerns into the development process.

Responding to youth problems is an essential part of socio-economic development in Sri Lanka, given its history of violent, youth-led insurgencies over the past three decades in the North-East and Southern parts of the country. Youth unemployment, especially among educated youth, is seen to be a crucial contributing factor in such unrest. Improving knowledge of patterns of youth exclusion and, the strengthening of structural approaches to youth integration-through-employment can serve as an important component of addressing root conflict causes and supporting conflict transformation. Improving policy and program formulation of existing and/ or proposed youth employment schemes is needed to ensure sustainable social integration of youth. While the focus on youth do acknowledge the inverse relationship between employment opportunities and youth unrest, the programme also emphasizes the importance of youth participation in the political and the policy process by questioning the very premise of youth integration through development interventions on employment on which most initiatives are based.

Currently we are supporting a series of action-research studies examining development processes and policies in the regions from the perspective of conflict causality.

(a) district level micro-studies on the potential of local economic opportunities (LEO) for peacebuilding in Sri Lanka, with a special focus on supporting the formulation of conflict sensitive youth employment programs and policies. Research and policy advocacy were facilitated in partnership with the Social Policy Analysis and Research Centre (SPARC) of the University of Colombo;
(b) a survey of the local business community’s experiences and perceptions of the functioning of local government structures done together with the Sri Lanka Institute for Local Governance;
(c) an assessment of conflict impact on value chain dynamics in the Fishery Sector of Sri Lanka, undertaken by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS);
(d) as mandated under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000, Alert is also supporting the Women and Media Collective in a mapping exercise of local women’s organisations addressing the predicament of women and girls in war-related situations in Sri Lanka;
(e) a new area of exploration is the examination of the broad scope of impact of the extended internal conflict on Sri Lanka economy, polity and governance and, social fabric. Now, a comprehensive multi-sectoral study is under design in collaboration with interested development agencies, local think-tanks and other stake-holders.

Alert also supports various dissemination strategies through dialogue workshops, publications and electronic media strategies. Together with Young Asia Television (YATV), the Youth Employment Network (YEN) of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) we facilitated a comprehensive television talk show on crucial issues affecting youth integration in Sri Lanka. The program, titled “GOOD JOB: DECENT WORK & SOCIAL JUSTICE” was aired over several month in a number of TV channels and has recently been launch as a DVD together with an accompanying training guide for practitioners, youth workers and government agencies working on youth issues.

The program aims at establishing an independent, sustainable training institute in the context of profound local and international changes that have been taking place in terms of strategic, political and economic transformations. It sets itself three main tasks: (i) to provide civil society organizations throughout the South and South East Asian region with professional expertise, technical and organizational support and advisory services required for addressing conflict – related and reconciliation issues; (ii) to strengthen institutional and professional capacities of civil society organizations and the community at large in resolving conflicts and achieving reconciliation at community level; and (iii) to conduct training on resolution, peace building and conflict sensitive development, publishing literature related to the above fields, financial assistance, educational support and co-operating with other non-profit organizations with similar goals.