A NEW CATALYST FOR PEACE
How ICG works to speed and strengthen crisis response
The ICG approach is designed to combine influence with field expertise and analytical capability
and employs these skills in combination to develop and advocate the most
practical recommendations to seemingly intractable problems. ICG is supported
by highly professional staff with extensive experience at national and international
policy level in a wide range of disciplines,including on-site disaster
response work. In addition, the ICG approach supports the building of strategic
alliances within the international response community, actively co-operating
with others to achieve shared goals, and thus benefits from the counsel
of senior advisors from NGO and government policy circles around the world.
Role and function
ICG's role, then, is that of a force-multiplier, lending weight
and resonance to the efforts of other organisations involved in crisis response.
ICG's international profile and independent character help it to avoid many
of the political, institutional, and bureaucratic constraints under which
other organisations must often operate. Its recommendations may be at odds
with current public opinion, government policies, or the views of NGOs.
But ICG has no axe to grind beyond averting human misery wherever it occurs
and whoever is responsible.
ICG's recommendations will always be presented in a constructive manner
and demonstrate an informed understanding of the practical, cultural and
political problems facing policy-makers and field personnel. Their aim will
always be to strengthen the hand of international institutions and stimulate
governmental action when needed. Wherever possible, ICG's independent analyses
and action plans will be designed so as to be readily implemented by governments
and organisations seeking to change policies or marshal international support
for them.
One very distinct aspect of ICG's method of advocacy is close
interaction with the media. We will keep under constant review our relations
with senior newspaper columnists, specialist print and broadcast correspondents
and the key gatekeepers - editors and publishers - who determine what is
covered in the media and how. Particular attention needs to be paid to the
media's agenda-setting capability and its ability to build crucial new constituencies
of interest. But there will be no element of propaganda in this liaison;
it will remain a symbiotic relationship in which ICG - especially through
its field personnel - is regarded by the media as an important source of
accurate and independent information and constructive analysis during a
breaking crisis.
ICG research staff also have responsibility for liaison with
counterparts in other organisations and for ensuring a free distribution of
our findings. Similarly, others' findings can be disseminated more widely through
our world-wide network of contacts, as well as through other international channels
in such a way as to expand the collective memory of the international response
community and to reinforce the efficiency with which it can act.Popular
support for ICG recommendations will be fostered through its public education
and information programmes.
Focus of activity
With each lost opportunity to take early, pre-emptive action,
the range of options available for successful and cost-effective intervention
is reduced. For this reason ICG's primary focus is on finding ways to stimulate
governments and inter-governmental institutions to take rapid preventive
action when faced with impending crises.
Accordingly, ICG will make use of a broad array of formal and
informal contacts to monitor as many of the international community's early-warning
systems as possible. By combining the information thus obtained with its
own assessments provided by ICG personnel in the field, ICG aims to detect
when thresholds of unrest or tension within a given population are being
crossed. ICG will be able to dispatch rapidly to the field a multi-disciplinary
team of professionals who know where to go, what to look for and how to
interpret breaking developments. As a private organisation,ICG will in
many cases be able to sidestep obstacles which often impede official delegations,
or members of other public bodies, in their efforts to visit trouble-spots.
ICG field team reports will be subjected to cross-cutting,policy-oriented
analysis at headquarters and this will produce a strategy and the recommendations
on which ICG's advocacy efforts will be based.Issues addressed might include
suggestions for protecting minorities, encouraging preventive peacekeeping
initiatives, or proposals for military intervention.ICG's paramount objective
will be to promote measures aimed at preventing conflict and, should preventive
efforts fail, at enabling the international community to mount a speedy
and effective response effort.
Practical measures
The creation of ICG represents a timely, world-wide response to
a seriously deteriorating state of affairs. ICG's primary aim is to find
practical solutions to apparently intractable problems. Its role is not
to break down barriers or impose unwelcome recommendations, but to mobilise
the expertise which can show how and where bridges can be built in order
to:
- identify in advance the social, cultural, ethnic, economic and
political divisions which might lead to conflict within or between countries;
- to determine, as objectively as possible, appropriate strategies for averting or ameliorating crises by engaging opinion leaders;and to
- use advocacy, as publicly as possible (or as privately as
necessary) as a tool to encourage the international community to take appropriate
steps, in conjunction with local parties, to avert crises.
To have any hope of achieving all this, an organisation would
require not only access to highly accomplished analysts and advocates,but
also to be completely non-partisan. That is why, from the outset, ICG has
been an international body both in name and in nature. That is why it has
sought and won the support, not only of governments and inter-governmental agencies,
but of multi-national corporations and members of the informed public from
all over the world. That is why, from the outset, ICG is seeking to involve
local community interests in areas where such contact is often either absent
or at best patchy.
ICG relies upon its international independence to enable it
to function effectively as an international, professional advocacy body.Unlike
inter-governmental organisations, ICG cannot serve any particular constituency
of interest; but when successful its efforts can be of benefit to everyone.
ICG's funding and support are drawn from an international constituency,
making it independent of any other organisation.
ICG's Mission
ICG's analytical capabilities and its strategically targeted,international
advocacy efforts are designed to reinforce and complement the role of governments,
the United Nations, regional organisations like the European Union and the
Organisation for African Unity and other inter- and non-governmental organisations.
Its autonomy, influential leadership and international reach enable ICG
to speak, in public and in private,with an independence, candour and authority
that are sorely needed.
To summarise, ICG's mission is to help find a cure for the
paralysis afflicting the international community.
ICG was created in order
to:
- strengthen the capacity of the international community to
anticipate, understand and prevent man-made disasters;
- act as a catalyst to help foster a heightened sense of obligation among governments to deal with the problems posed by large-scale emergencies;
- develop and promote strategies designed to assist governments
and inter-governmental organisations to translate early warning signs of impending disaster into early action to avert crises;
- mobilise support among officials and among the general public
for concerted international, national and private sector response efforts
at times of impending crisis;
- boost public confidence in the international crisis response
system.