Training and Learning

International Alert Sri Lanka recently visited New Delhi in an attempt to further expand Alert’s regional work in the South Asia.

Last month, International Alert conducted a week long communication training course for local peacebuilding organisations active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The training took place against a backdrop of renewed fighting and multiple atrocities having been reported on all sides.

Local organisations taking part in the training were long term partners of the Life and Peace Institute, which is one of our partners in Bukavu, South Kivu province.

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.

International Alert and Réseau Haki na Amani, a Congolese NGO, have recently published a manual in order to support local communities dealing with land conflicts in Ituri, a North-eastern district of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kyrgyzstan is slowly moving forward after the June 2010 violence in the south of the country that left hundreds dead. On 10th October, parliamentary elections were held in a peaceful manner and characterised as relatively fair. 56 per cent of those with the right to vote went to the polls and cast their vote for one of the 29 parties contesting the 120 seats in the Parliament. According to the OSCE and European Parliament election observers, the elections ‘constituted a further consolidation of the democratic process’*.

Over 120 students from three ethnically mixed universities in South Kyrgyzstan recently learned about conflict prevention and started planning for projects aimed at increasing confidence between their peers of different nationalities.

Over 100 students debated youth policy and ways to prevent the growth of radicalism as part of an International Alert project in Tajikistan. In October 2010, International Alert worked with a number of talented students who facilitated five roundtable debates aimed at fostering dialogue and a common understanding of the causes and remedies of the religious radicalisation of youth in Tajikistan.

In the post-Cold War period, the nature of conflicts has changed, with conflict moving closer to civilians as combatants, victims or (perceived) supporters of one or the other faction. International development and humanitarian NGOs that seek to address the needs of civilians have become operational in more war zones than ever before and, while conflict has always been a pervasive feature of their work in many areas of the world, they have become more aware of the inevitable two-way relationship between conflict and their programmes, staff and partners.

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International Alert welcomes the opportunity from the European Commission to comment on the
“provisional draft non-paper” on EIDHR programming for 2005-2006. Below we have outlined some
recommendations for thematic and sub-thematic priorities, for indicators and some lessons learned of
implementing EIDHR funding which we hope will contribute to this process.

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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

This paper aims to serve as background and analytical guidance for a conflict assessment of the Education for All programme in Nepal. In doing so it:

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This Review of the Education For All (EFA) programme in Nepal was commissioned by the Finnish Embassy on behalf of the group of supporting donors and undertaken by a team of consultants contracted by International Alert. The intention is to examine the EFA programme in relation to conflict and the current political crisis. Over a period of a month the team reviewed the relevant literature, visited the Mid-West and East, and engaged in consultation with stakeholders in Nepal.

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