Caucasus

The repeated recurrences of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict since 1992 following the break-up of the Soviet Union, along with the increasing isolation of South Ossetia from the outside world have resulted in widespread trauma and the destruction of the South Ossetian social fabric. Since the latest flare-up of violent hostilities in August 2008, opportunities for working on issues related to peacebuilding and civil society development in the South Ossetian context have been reduced to a minimum. Enemy images and stereotypes created during wartime are exacerbated by political and media discourses. Meanwhile, the reinforcement of physical borders hinders both social and economic interactions between people, reducing longer-term prospects for peaceful coexistence.

Confidence building in this context must be approached extremely sensitively, as premature efforts can have negative impacts that would set back the prospect for dialogue and normalisation of relations for decades.

International Alert is working with teachers to provide skills in dealing with individual and social trauma, to help them provide adequate support to their pupils, parents and communities. Through a combination of training and "learning by doing", these teachers are offered a wide range of tools that they can use in the classroom and in their communities. They are encouraged to initiate extra-curricular activities and promote problem-solving at a local level in recognition of how self-help and community mobilisation can be a powerful antidote to social trauma.

Since 2003, Alert has been working to engage the private sectors and economic actors in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, as well as Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorny Karabakh in economic initiatives that contribute to conflict reduction in the South Caucasus.

In the absence of political settlements to the conflicts in the South Caucasus, Alert believes that business offers a common interest for dialogue and cooperation across the region – and an alternative way to address the conflicts. The vision underpinning the work is a region where economic interdependence and mutually beneficial economic cooperation are pillars of stability and peace. The strand’s theory of change and underlying assumptions on the positive role business and economic actors can play in peacebuilding are the result of joint analysis conducted together with Alert’s partners, including From War Economies to Peace Economies and Corruption and Conflict. Alert’s Economy and Conflict work has been instrumental in putting economic issues on the peacebuilding agenda of international and national actors in the region.

The establishment of the Caucasus Business and Development Network (CBDN, www.caucasusbusiness.net) in 2006 witnessed a shift from theory to practice. Since then, CBDN has become a pioneering initiative promoting economic factors and cooperation as a peacebuilding strategy in the region – working towards economically connected and cooperating peaceful Caucasus.

As of today, the work ranges from livelihood and income generation initiatives to promotion of sectoral regional economic cooperation – devising ways to legalise cross-divide economic cooperation and analysing the status of regional economic cooperation and international advocacy work.