Crisis Group About Video 2005

Brussels The International Crisis Group has produced a new video to mark its tenth anniversary. The video chronicles the group's growth into a highly-respected, independent, global research and advocacy organisation, with over 110 staff members on five continents working to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.  

Crisis Group was established in 1995 by a group of prominent international citizens and foreign policy specialists who were appalled by the international community's failure to act effectively in response to the crises in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda. Their aim was to create a new organisation, wholly independent of any government, which would help governments, international organisations and the world community at large prevent or at least contain deadly conflict -- and, if and when prevention failed, try to resolve it.  

Over the last decade, Crisis Group has made its mark over and again -- in the peace processes for Congo, Burundi, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Liberia; in the tumultuous series of crises, and painful and protracted business of peacebuilding, throughout the Balkans; in the post-9/11 analysis of terrorist threats, and the roots of  Islamist violence, from  Indonesia to Pakistan to the Gulf; in identifying in credible detail before anyone else the elements of an achievable settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict; in generating new international pressures on authoritarian regimes in Central Asia; in identifying new strategies for movement out of the morass in Colombia; and in articulating clear strategies for resolving the nuclear standoffs in North Korea and Iran, and the cross-Strait tension between China and Taiwan.

“What makes Crisis Group really effective is the kind of advocacy we do: it’s the very direct face to face contact with high-level decision-makers and those who influence them”, explains Crisis Group President Gareth Evans in the video. “We try to  talk to the people that matter in a language they understand and with a professionalism they respect”.

The video features cameos of the organisation’s successes over the years, along with interviews with Crisis Group field staff from around the world who explain how they conduct their unique field research and analysis, and deliver their policy prescriptions to decision-makers at all levels of government.

Subscribe to Crisis Group’s Email Updates

Receive the best source of conflict analysis right in your inbox.