International Institutions

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.

Commenting on the outcome of the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, International Alert’s Director of Programmes Phil Vernon says: “As we expected, the summit has ended with commitments of more funding, and a big push to get as far as possible in meeting the MDGs by 2015. But there is also widespread recognition that they will not be met, and that the international community still needs to face up to the challenge of how best to help people and institutions in fragile contexts to make sustainable progress.

International Alert’s submission to the International Development Committee Inquiry The 2010 Millennium Development Goals Review Summit: Looking ahead to after the MDG deadline of 2015

In this submission, we focus on looking ahead to after the MDG deadline of 2015, and:

It’s not often that we get a chance to celebrate the culmination of our peacebuilding achievements, but last week in Brussels, International Alert celebrated the end of its three-year project, the Initiative for Peacebuilding (IfP). The finale, which was held in a unique Moorish “folly” in the centre of Brussels, was a chance for  Alert and partners to highlight the Initiative’s “Milestones on the Road to Peace” as well as draw attention to the human dimension of our work.

This paper summarises current debates on conflict, aid and peacebuilding and suggests that humanitarian agencies can go beyond avoiding negative impacts on conflict (‘Do No Harm’), to contributing positively to conflict transformation and peacebuilding (‘Do Good’) in a way that respects their core mandates and key humanitarian principles. The paper argues that this may be achieved by incorporating a ‘conflict sensitive’ approach in planning and programming. ‘Conflict sensitivity’ can be defined as the capacity of an organisation to:

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A legitimate, representative and capacitated civil society is essential for effective statebuilding and a condition for sustainable peace in Nepal. Donor support to civil society in the Nepali conflict context can be conceptualised in a number of ways. Strategies can broadly focus at the national, district and community levels, or on urban and rural constituencies. Similarly, a temporal distinction can be made between short-, medium- and long-term strategies.

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Produced as part of the EU-funded Conflict Prevention Partnership, this paper analyses the context in which the European Union uses its external relations instruments to address security issues, promote legitimate and effective governance, and support economic recovery and regional integration, in the DRC. Consultations in the region and in the EU, as well as meetings held in Kinshasa in September 2006 with local officials, civil society and international diplomats have been used to develop recommendations and suggest possible avenues under each theme.

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This paper is aimed at motivating and informing discussion within the EU institutions and Member States on the nature of their engagement in the South Caucasus. It suggests priority areas for political dialogue and external assistance programming under the upcoming EC Country and Regional Strategy Papers. It argues that unless authorities and civil society in the region, supported by the international community, genuinely address the root causes of violent conflict, societal instability and distrust, then broad-based development and prosperity will remain beyond reach.

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This paper grows from the meeting between IA and the Donor Group on 23rd November 2006 on how to respond effectively and appropriately in the changed political context in Nepal. Drawing on the comments and analysis at the meeting, this paper offers recommendations on priorities for donor engagement. The basic theme is that short-term goals can be achieved, but only if addressing the culture of power in Nepal is the starting point.

Briefing paper

Over the past 50 years, Nepal has received over USD11 billion in foreign aid.Today, almost 50 bilateral and multilateral donor agencies and more than 100 INGOs regularly provide aid to Nepal. International aid accounts for the majority of the national development budget whereby Nepal is dependent on aid (loans and grants) for basic service delivery, social and economic infrastructure development.Nepal remains, however, one of the poorest countries in South Asia, with over one quarter of the population under the poverty line and huge swathes of the country food-poor.

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New strategy papers for the EU's engagement with developing countries will soon be agreed. The activities under them will have fundamental impacts on the contexts in which they will be applied, and many of these are prone to, or affected by, violent conflict, or experience some kind of societal or state fragility.

Briefing paper

This study outlines the particular development challenges confronting international actors in fragile and conflict-affected countries, and gives a summary of the World Bank’s evolving approach to those challenges. The study then sets out certain key problems which, despite recent improvements, continue to reduce the quality of the Bank’s impacts. Noting the inconsistencies in the Bank’s approaches, it assesses the factors that determine the Bank’s ability to deal with, and help address, the immense complexity of its operating environments.

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Executive summary

In this challenge paper the members of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council propose a new vulnerability and protection business model for humanitarian assistance. This new model should have six requirements: A comprehensive risk framework; A reworked balance of spending between response, prevention and recovery; A big investment in national and local capacity; Fuller engagement of the private sector; Linking of the humanitarian to broader social and economic development issues; and Regional and international readiness to address cross-border humanitarian issues.

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