International Alert

Activities

International Alert engages in wide ranging projects including "promoting conflict-sensitive business practice in the Extractive industries." [1]

International Alert also works in partnership with, and was a founding member of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) [2] , a network of NGOs active in conflict prevention that seeks to promote peacebuilding policies among decision-makers in Europe. Alert also sits on the Steering Committee of BOND’s European Policy Group, [3] a network of 290 UK Development NGOs working in international development.

IA has worked with the Armenian neoliberal think tank, the International Center for Human Development.

Funding

International Alert's core funders are European Governments: the Department of Foreign Affairs (Ireland), the Danish International Development Agency, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the UK Department for International Development.

It is also funded by various Trusts and Foundations including the US National Endowment for Democracy and USAID and the UK's Westminster Foundation for Democracy (a British version of the NED) and organisations such as Comic Relief. Other sources of funding come from Government and Inter-Governmental Organisations such as the Canadian International Development Agency, the European Commission, the Foreign Affairs Canada, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway and the UK Global Conflict Prevention Pool.

Trustees

• Sir Richard Dales (Chair) HM Diplomatic Service (retired), former High Commissioner to Zimbabwe (1992).
• Dr Francis Mading Deng: Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where he is also the Director of their Center for Displacement Studies.
• Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela: Served on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Senior consultant for the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town, and associate professor of psychology at the University of Cape Town, Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at the Divinity School at Harvard University. [4]
• Henny van der Graaf: Dutch Brig. General (retired).
• Dr Kamal Hossain: Barrister, whose work involves international law, constitutional law, and human rights. He served the Government of Bangladesh as Minister of Law (1972-1973), Foreign Affairs (1973-1975), and Petroleum and Minerals (1974-1975). More recently, he has been the UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan (1998-2003) and is currently a Member of the UN Compensation Commission. At present he is Chairman, Advisory Council, Transparency International; Vice-Chairman, International Law Association; Chairman, Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs and Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust. Member, United Nations Compensation Commission, Geneva and the UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Paulina Lampsa: Advisor to George Papandreou – former Foreign Minister of Greece and leader of the opposition (PASOK) party – on conflict management issues since 1990. She is a member of the Central Committee of PASOK and of the party’s International Relations Department. She was an honorary candidate in the June 2004 elections for the European Parliament. Since 1997 she has been an active member of the Greek-Turkish Forum, an unofficial group that works on developing rapprochement between Greece and Turkey.
• Craig McGilvrary: Financial director of Stiell Limited 1998-2002 and Alfred McAlpine, the construction, facilities management and infrastructure providers, where he has been Managing Director, Corporate Division since 2003 and is responsible for leadership, strategy and growth of McAlpine’s Facilities Management Business.
• Frida Nokken: Secretary General of the Nordic Council since 1999.
• Brendan O'Leary: Director of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict and Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He was educated at Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE), and previously chaired the Department of Government at LSE. He has recognised expertise in national self-determination, power-sharing and electoral systems, and served as a constitutional advisor to the Kurdistan Government in Iraq. Prof O'Leary has previously acted as a constitutional advisor in Northern Ireland, Somalia, and South Africa and has advised the UN, the EU, the UK and US governments on conflicts in Europe and Asia. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of fifteen books, including The Northern Ireland Conflict, The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq and the up-coming Terror, Insurgency and the State.
• Wigberto Tañada: As a senator, Tañada chaired the Philippine Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights. He is currently chair of the Philippine Working Group on the ASEAN Mechanism for Human Rights, and a convenor of the Asian Peace Alliance, a network of peace advocates, scholars, civil-society organisations and social-political movements from 15 Asia-Pacific countries. He also is chair of the Agrarian Justice Foundation, Inc. and is a lead convenor of the Gathering for Peace, the broadest Philippine coalition ever organised after 9/11 by peace and human rights advocates and president, since 1999, of the country's longest-serving NGO; the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement.
• Martin Woollacott: Foreign affairs journalist at The Guardian for almost 40 years. He has reported from the Far East, covering the last years of the Vietnam War, the Bangladesh war and the Indian Emergency; the Middle East, covering the Iranian revolution and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon; as well as reporting as a travelling senior correspondent from Iraq, Bosnia and Sierra Leone during the interventions in those countries. Although retired from the newspaper since 2004, Mr. Woollacott continues to write regular columns on international affairs. He is a member of the board of Institute for War & Peace Reporting since 1993.