International Alert was founded in 1986 to help people find peaceful solutions to conflict.
At that time, the number of conflicts between countries was decreasing, but there was an alarming increase in the number of conflicts within countries. These conflicts were undermining development and leading to gross violations of human rights. Identifying and highlighting individual abuses of human rights was not enough; a different approach was desperately needed. It was out of this urgency that International Alert was born.
In 1985 the Standing International Forum on Ethnic Conflict, Development and Human Rights (SIFEC) was founded with the purpose of addressing the issue of internal conflicts and to alert governments and the world to developing crises. The following year, SIFEC merged with another organisation, International Alert on Genocide and Massacres, to become the charity we know today.
In 1986 we named our first Board of Trustees and Secretary General, Martin Ennals. Martin was the former Secretary General of Amnesty International and founder of Article 19, and a pioneer of the human rights movement. He served as our Secretary General – and for a time our only full-time member of staff – from 1986–1990. It is thanks in no small part to his energy, inspiration and vision that we have become the organisation that we are today.
Building on our early work in Sri Lanka, Uganda and the Philippines, we now help people find peaceful solutions to conflict in over 30 countries around the world and are one of the world’s leading peacebuilding organisations.
Our work is designed to positively impact the quality of life of the people we work with. Through a range of approaches, we work with people and institutions so they are better able to anticipate and manage conflict without violence.
As a result of our work, we have seen improvements in relationships within and between communities, and between citizens and the state. We are contributing to more effective and transparent resource management, and reducing the impact of climate change on insecurity.
We pay specific attention to integrating gender in peacebuilding. And, in keeping with emerging global trends, we have started to look at the interactions between crime, violence and instability, to address key issues of today’s world that can lead to increased levels of violence.
In Tunisia we support the democratic transition process by promoting the inclusion of excluded and marginalised groups.
We bring together civil society organisations to identify and tackle the challenges facing young people, women and those in the interior of the country, among others. This includes identifying ways in which they can work with political leaders, government representatives and the international community to address these challenges.
Our work is important because it helps to strengthen civil society’s skills in advocacy, conflict resolution and analysis of development needs in marginalised areas, which are vital if they are to support a peaceful and inclusive political transition in the country.
We have been working in Tunisia since 2011.
