Caucasus and Central Asia

On 1st and 2nd December 2010, International Alert hosted a meeting of political analysts, sociologists, journalists, bloggers and civil society activists from the Caucasus to begin to design a new research project examining how to address myths and stereotypes that feed into conflict dynamics in the region.

International Alert hosted a roundtable on Georgian-Abkhaz relations in Brussels on 29th November with experts from the South Caucasus, Russia and representatives of European institutions and the UN. This roundtable was the culmination of a two-year dialogue through research process between Georgian and Abkhaz experts which International Alert has been facilitating with a view to contribute new thinking on conflict related issues to as wide an audience as possible.

Alert is pleased to present its most recent publication on the Caucasus: Dialogue on security guarantees in the context of the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict. This paper presents the separate analyses of both Georgian and Abkhaz civil society experts on the need for security guarantees in the region, the reasons why the two sides have been unable to agree on these and the barriers and opportunities for future agreements.

The Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN), a project co-founded and supported by International Alert, recently visited London and Brussels to promote its work on economic approaches to peacebuilding and to publicise the initial results of its recent research. Between 17th and 25th March Alert’s partners gathered in London for a strategic planning meeting that was followed by seminars conducted by CBDN at King’s College in London and at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

The Third Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum took place in Vienna between 24th and 27th March. During the 4 days of the Forum the Armenian and Azerbaijani participants worked together to develop concrete ideas and proposals for confidence building measures that could contribute to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The Third Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum aimed at contributing to the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict took place in Vienna between 24th-27th March. The Forum, organised by International Alert, marked a mile stone in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process as it brought together for the first time all the international mediators involved in the peacebuilding process as well as a large delegation of civil society representatives from all sides of the conflict divide.

International Alert recently organised a public round table on Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Creating Conditions for Building Peace – the Role of Russia, together with the Russian Centre for Strategic Studies of Religion and Politics of Contemporary World and the Russian Media Centre Izvestya, and with the participation of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation.

International Alert recently brought together in Moscow experts on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for a meeting on Developing Agenda for Peacebuilding and Public Dialogue. Armenian, Azerbaijani, Russian and other international analysts and civil society activists took part in the two-day discussions in Moscow.

Between 10-12 June 2010, Alert’s Economy & Conflict partners from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey as well as Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia, the Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN), gathered in Brussels for a strategic planning meeting to discuss their work promoting regional and cross-divide economic cooperation initiatives in the South Caucasus.

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.

Between 17th-20th July 2010, International Alert’s Economy & Conflict project partners, the Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN), organised the Second Caucasian Cheese Exhibition in Tbilisi, Georgia. The exhibition brought together Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Turkish producers, experts and officials to promote dairy sector cooperation in the region. 

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:

Together with its Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN) partners from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia as well as South Ossetia, International Alert participated in the 20th Economic Forum in Krynica, Poland between 8th-11th September 2010. It was the fourth time CBDN participated and chaired a panel in the event, often dubbed as the “Davos of Central and Eastern Europe”. This year, CBDN was among the Forum’s official institutional partners.

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.

The second of Alert’s psycho-social trainings for teachers from South Ossetia took place between 20th-22nd September in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. Following on from the first seminar in Brussels earlier this year, the agenda and methodology used aimed to impart skills required to deal with individual and social trauma, the result of repeated cycles of violent conflict in South Ossetia, most recently in August 2008.