International Alert is a global peacebuilding charity established in 1986. It aims to promote dialogue, training, research, policy analysis, advocacy, and outreach activities. The organization addresses the root causes of conflict by working with over 800 partner organizations on projects that advance conflict resolution and support human rights. International Alert operates in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Colombia, the Caucasus, and Ukraine. International Alert GB is headquartered in Oval, in the London Borough of Lambeth, with another office in The Hague, Europe. In the 2019/20 financial year, International Alert GB had a total income of £17.6 million. During this period, the organization employed 300 people across nineteen countries and utilized the services of 23,000 volunteers. Michael Young served as the chief executive officer from September 2019 until February 2021, when Nic Hailey succeeded him as executive director. The chairperson of Alert's board of trustees is David Nussbaum, former CEO of The Elders, WWF-UK, and Transparency International.

History

International Alert is said to be the daughter of Amnesty International, one of the first non-governmental organizations created with a specific focus on conflicts and their resolution. It involves the same combination of elites as founding members, drawn from the political, legal, and academic fields, and similar areas of expertise (fact-finding missions and reporting). It combines operational engagement with policy research. Alert's distinctive identity reflected its desire to provide a link between research and practice in dealing with armed conflicts on the one hand and human rights, humanitarianism, and development on the other. In 1985, the Standing International Forum on Ethnic Conflict, Development, and Human Rights (SIFEC) was founded with the purpose of addressing the issue of conflict and alerts to governments across the world about developing crises. The following year, SIFEC merged with the US organization International Alert on Genocide and Massacres to become International Alert (IA). The organization was founded in 1986 by Leo Kuper, Michael Young,

Martin Ennals Martin Ennals (27 July 19275 October 1991) was a British human rights activist. Ennals served as the secretary-general of Amnesty International from 1968 to 1980. He went on to help found the British human rights organisation ARTICLE 19 in 19 ...

, and

Luis Kutner Luis Kutner (June 9, 1908 – March 1, 1993) was a US human rights activist, FBI informant, and lawyer who was on the National Advisory Council of the US branch of Amnesty International during its early years and created the concept of a livin ...

in response to growing concerns in the international development and human rights community that internal conflicts were impeding the ability to protect and provide for civilian populations, and that there was no effective international mechanism to address this situation. International Alert undertook to advance research on the causes of such conflict and to promote all means of conciliation and resolution, becoming an early advocate of multi-track diplomacy. From its first days, the conflict in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

was a particular focus. Dutch jurist Theo Van Boven was its first chairman;

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...

Laureate Archbishop

Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop ...

, the former

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

served as vice chairman of its board of trustees, along with Mexican sociologist

Rodolfo Stavenhagen Rodolfo Stavenhagen (29 August 1932 – 5 November 2016) was a German-born Mexican sociologist and anthropologist who specialized in the study of human rights and the political relations between indigenous peoples and states. He was a professor-r ...

Leadership

, the former secretary general of

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

and founder of Article 19, served as secretary general of the new organization. From 1986 to 1989, Ennals was International Alert's only full-time staff member. He was joined by Andy Carl (later the founder of Conciliation Resources, who managed IA from 1992 to 1993 following Ennals' death. Alert expanded rapidly in 1994–1998 under the leadership of Sri Lankan Kumar Rupesinghe, growing to over 50 staff members with major programs in Sri Lanka,

Burundi Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...

, and

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

. Australian Kevin P. Clements served as general secretary from 1998 to 2002. By 1998 Alert had a budget of approximately £5 million and 80 staff, managing programs in over 15 countries in conflict. Dan Smith, now secretary general of the

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an international institute based in Stockholm, Sweden. It was founded in 1966 and provides data, analysis and recommendations for armed conflict, military expenditure and arms trade a ...

served as secretary general from 2002 to 2015. From 2015 to 2019, Harriet Lamb, CEO of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Fairtrade Foundation for over a decade. became International Alert's CEO. Michael Young, formerly with the

International Rescue Committee The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1 ...

and Mercy Corps led the organization for the year following Lamb's departure. In September 2021, former British diplomat Nic Hailey became the executive director of International Alert. In addition to serving in London as Africa director and in the Foreign Secretary's Office, Hailey had diplomatic postings to Washington, D.C., Paris, Berlin, and Kabul, and served as British high commissioner to Kenya. His final government position was director general - transformation, leading the merger of the

Foreign and Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 ...

and the

Department for International Development The Department for International Development (DFID) was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom, from 1997 to 2020. It was responsible for administering foreign aid ...

Board members

International Alert's board of trustees is composed of the following members: David Nussbaum (chair), Lisa L. Rose (vice-chair), Richard Langstaff (honorary treasurer), Emine Bozkurt, Nina Fallentin Caspersen, Abir Haj Ibrahim, Njeri Kabeberi and Erin Segilia-Chase. David Nussbaum became board chair in 2023.

Notable initiatives

Data mining for conflict prevention

International Alert was an early advocate for the development of conflict early warning systems. Its work on

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

and peacebuilding was important in establishing the necessity of incorporating gender relations and female stakeholders in conflict early warning systems. By the early 1990s, International Alert was using the HURIDOCS database in conjunction with early

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

conferencing systems, to enable it to keep abreast of and interact with "local and international nongovernmental organizations and international experts." Through the mid-1990s, by applying a combination of manual and automated analysis in conjunction with such systems, researchers collaborating with International Alert performed early

data mining Data mining is the process of extracting and finding patterns in massive data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems. Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and ...

research, demonstrating the viability of this approach for predicting conflict outcomes and encouraging the development of a website for the

African Union The African Union (AU) is a continental union of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the African Union. The b ...

's Continental Early Warning System (CEWS).

Millennium Peace Prize for Women

In 2001, as part of International Alert's ''Women Building Peace'' campaign, the organization collaborated with the

United Nations Development Fund for Women The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, , ) was established in December 1976 originally as the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women in the International Women's Year. Its first director was Margaret C. Snyder. U ...

and awarded a Millennium Peace Prize for Women.

References

{{Authority control Charities based in London International charities International organisations based in London Organisations based in the London Borough of Lambeth Peace organisations based in the United Kingdom