Global

The Women Building Peace: Sharing Know-How workshop on Assessing Impact was held in London in July 2004. The meeting brought together women from conflict and transition contexts in Africa (including Uganda, Sudan, and Somalia), the Middle East (Israel), South Asia (Nepal), the Caucasus (Georgia and Abkhazia) and South America (Colombia).

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This report provides a comprehensive review of progress towards implementing the important commitments contained in the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects (PoA), drawing on data gathered for over 180 countries and analysing relevant local, national, regional and international processes.

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The European Security Strategy highlights ‘state failure’ as one of the five key threats facing Europe - along with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), terrorism, organised crime and regional conflicts. Yet while the EU has devoted considerable focus to addressing WMD and terrorism, it has paid less attention to state failure, which underpins all of these other threats.

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The first Review Conference for the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects is due to take place in July 2006. This is a major international event. It provides the first formal international opportunity to review and strengthen the UN Programme of Action (PoA) since it was agreed in July 2001.

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This is the first issue of International Alert's newsletter.

In this issue:

• Congolese women speak out against sexual violence
• New look, new website
• Preventing conflict in Sao Tome and Principe
• Celebrating peace with Liberia’s media
• Recognising gender and peacebuilding at the UN
• Promoting conflict-sensitivity by corporations
• New publications
• How to get involved

Update 1

International Alert has been working for almost 20 years to build peace in countries and territories affected or threatened by violent conflict. This work reflects our vision of a world in which, when people pursue their human rights and seek chances of betterment for themselves and their communities, the conflicts that arise are pursued with honesty, with forthrightness, and also with wisdom so that they do not erupt into violence.

Annual review 2004-5

The adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in October 2000 was the first formal and legal document from the Security Council that requires parties to a conflict and the international community to respect women’s rights and to support their participation at all stages in peace negotiations, conflict prevention and post conflict reconstruction Five years after this adoption, it is timely to question what implementation mechanisms have been created.

Toolkit

Until now the financial sector has had limited involvement in international debates on business and conflict. This background paper seeks to stimulate greater consideration of conflict risk and a more constructive path for project finance backed investments in conflict-prone regions.

Paper

The first Review Conference for the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects took place in July 2006. This Report identifies and examines key priorities for the 2006 Review Conference for the PoA. It particularly focuses on identifying realistic and potentially negotiable objectives for the Conference.

Full report

This is the second issue of International Alert's newsletter.

In this issue:

• Local Business, Local Peace
• Spotlight on Guinea
• Encouraging DFID to take a peacebuilding approach
• The impact of corruption in the South Caucasus
• Supporting peace through our resource centres

Update

This report by Biting the Bullet (International Alert, Saferworld and University of Bradford) aims to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date review and analysis of progress towards implementation of the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons In All Its Aspects (PoA) and of the consequent issues and priorities for the 2006 Review Conference.

Full report

The end of the Cold War era brought with it great violence and turmoil. Since 1990 there have been over 125 armed wars, millions of civilian deaths, as well as devastation and ruin for some of the world’s most disadvantaged communities. The majority of these conflicts happen within states, not between them, creating new challenges and aggravating persistant problems.

20th Anniversary brochure

This briefing paper proposes better lending practice in conflict-prone states – defined as ‘conflict-sensitive’ project finance – is in the interests of all stakeholders. Such an approach would enable financial institutions to:

    Understand the conflict context in which a project is developed
    Recognise the two-way process that characterises the interaction between investments and conflict and assess the impact between the project activities and the conflict context

Briefing paper

Contractors operating in unstable states face a range of conflict risks. Oil, gas and mining projects, which frequently have significant contractor involvement, can inadvertently trigger or sustain violence, or become the focus of resentment themselves. Produced in partnership with Engineers Against Poverty, this guidance note is addressed both to engineering contractors and their clients.

Guidance note

‘War kills development as well as people’.1 It destroys livelihoods as well as lives, and it undermines economic as well as political progress. Violence deprives people of opportunity as well as the physical infrastructure and social structures on which they rely. Above all, perhaps, it robs them of hope and belief in the future. In other words, the impacts of conflict are as damaging to the economic potential of a nation as they are to its social and political prospects.

Report