International_crisis_group

The International Crisis Group is an independent, international, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy.International Crisis Group - About International Crisis Group

Organization and purpose

The Crisis Group maintains that its primary goal is to prevent deadly conflict, and where efforts at prevention fail, to contain it. The organisation\'s two primary tools are field-based research and high-level advocacy; the former informs the latter. The Crisis Group maintains teams of analysts in 17 field offices worldwide, who are dispatched to areas at risk of outbreak, escalation, or recurrence of conflict. Based on the information these teams gather, the organization creates analytical reports with recommendations targeted at various world leaders and organizations. In addition to this work, the Crisis Group publishes a monthly newsletter, CrisisWatch, which provides a brief overview of continuing or impending violence in the world. All of the Crisis Group\'s reporting is available on its website.

Today

The Crisis Group is co-chaired by former British politician and European Commissioner for External Affairs, Christopher Patten and former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas R. Pickering. Its President and Chief Executive since January 2000 has been former Foreign Minister of Australia, Gareth Evans.

The Crisis Group\'s international headquarters are in Brussels, with advocacy offices in Washington DC (where it is based as a legal entity), New York, London and Moscow. The organisation currently operates seventeen field offices (in Abuja, Amman, Bishkek, Bogotá, Cairo, Colombo, Dakar, Dushanbe, Islamabad, Jakarta, Kabul, Kathmandu, Nairobi, Port-au-Prince, Priština, Seoul and Tbilisi), with analysts working in over 50 crisis-affected countries and territories across four continents (see list below). The Crisis Group raises funds from governments, charitable foundations, companies and individual donors. In 2006, 40% of its funding came from 22 different governments, 32% from 15 philanthropic organisations, and 28% from individuals and private foundations.

History

The International Crisis Group was founded in 1995 by World Bank Vice-President Mark Malloch Brown, former US diplomat Morton Abramowitz and Fred Cuny, an international disaster relief specialist who disappeared in Chechnya in 1995. Their aim was to create an organisation, wholly independent from any government, to assist governments, intergovernmental bodies and the international community at large in preventing deadly conflict.

Countries and territories with ongoing Crisis Group activity

• Africa: Angola, Burundi, Chad, Côte d\'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe
• Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China/Taiwan Strait, Cyprus, India (Kashmir), Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar/Burma, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan
• Europe: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey
• Latin America: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela
• Middle East/North Africa: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Issues research

Crisis Group\'s ten areas of issues research is co-ordinated out of Brussels. Reports published in 2001 and 2005 under the "Issues" heading "draw on lessons from Crisis Group\'s in-country experience in crisis zones around the world as well as existing studies by research institutions and think tanks."International Crisis Group - thematic issues The ten research areas are Islamism, Violence and Reform, Energy Issues, The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), Peace and justice, Gender and Conflict, Climate Change and Conflict, International Terrorism, Democratisation, The European Union and its crisis response capability, and HIV/AIDS as a security issue.International Crisis Group - thematic issues

Crisis Group President Gareth Evans served as co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty that first fully articulated the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect concept in 2001. The doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) holds that sovereign states, and the international community as a whole, have a responsibility to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes.International Crisis Group - thematic issues

References

External links

• Crisis Group website
• International Crisis Group: The Problem Solvers in Asia\'s Heroes 2005 by Aryn Baker, TIMEasia, October 3, 2005

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