About us
About International Alert
Our vision is a world where conflicts can be resolved without violence and people work together to support and sustain peace.
Our purpose is to support a sustainable and inclusive end to violence. To fulfil this purpose, we:
work with people directly affected by violence to support lasting solutions;
advocate with them for the changes to policies, practices and behaviours that are required for peace to be inclusive and sustainable; and
collaborate openly and in solidarity with all those striving for peace, to strengthen our common cause.
We base all our work on a deep understanding of the root causes of violence in each context, developed through long-term engagement. Our work draws on what we and others have learnt from decades of peacebuilding efforts.
Alert works from fifteen countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The majority of our over 200 staff come from and work in in those contexts, partnering with over 100 local civil society organisations and with communities to support people and institutions to build peace.
We value progress, fairness, inclusion, respect, and openness.
Our annual budget is around £20m. International Alert is headquartered in London, UK.
Our context and strategy
Conflict has become the single biggest obstacle to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and it blights the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Conflict is development in reverse: it destroys decades of hard work and hard-won gains, entrenches suffering and marginalisation, and closes off routes to positive social change. It easily becomes embedded in cycles of violence that are hard to break – not least because those with power may benefit from them.
Peace requires many approaches and contributions. But for it to be sustainable and sustained, peace must be shaped by those directly affected by conflict, through long-term work focused on the root causes of violence that addresses the connections between peace and the other needs and aspirations of communities. This is what drives Alert’s work.
In 2022-23, International Alert conducted a wide consultation with our partners and staff team that resulted in the launch of a new Strategy 2024-30. Key priorities in this strategy are:
Further transforming our relationships with local communities and peacebuilding partners, so our partnerships are firmly based on equity and local leadership with our peacebuilding increasingly led and managed by our local partners.
Sharpening and increasing our role integrating peacebuilding with responses to the other needs and aspirations of the communities we serve, such as better livelihoods, or equitable access to basic services.
Making the most of our international network to deliver what our partners most want: convening partners to share learning with each other, connecting partners with platforms for influencing, drawing learning from across contexts to inform peacebuilding approaches and global advocacy, and fostering an internal, international culture of collaboration and learning.
Reshaping our organisation so it is fully equitable and inclusive, with global recruitment for most previously HQ-based roles, inclusive and participative decision-making, and more delegated accountability within a more transparent and robust operational framework.
Ensuring our business model is sustainable, in the face of continuing reductions in the availability of unrestricted funding.
Since launching our strategy in early 2024, Alert has been implementing a significant change to our global operating model to deliver the strategy’s objectives. This includes:
Restructuring our country operations into sub-regional hubs which share leadership, expertise and support resources in a more decentralised overall model. This work should be largely complete in 2025.
Significant restructuring and reduction in size in our global/HQ teams, mostly completed in 2024.
A full policy and procedures review, along with the rollout of our finance system to all country offices, to deliver more delegated accountability within a stronger operating framework.
New frameworks and procedures for our local partnerships, and work towards partner-driven organisational planning processes.
Investment in management and leadership skills and in collaboration and learning across the organisation.
The successful candidate for this role will have a central role to play in completing this transformation and ensuring the benefits and strategic goals are delivered.
Alert’s funding is almost entirely project-based and mainly from institutional donors, in common with our peers in the peacebuilding INGO sector. Our operations and other global functions must work efficiently and effectively to support this within tight constraints on funding for organisational overhead recovered through our projects. This role therefore requires someone who can both lead complex operations at a senior level, and is prepared both to work through the team and to get stuck into delivery directly.
Equity, diversity and inclusion statement
International Alert prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer and particularly welcomes applications from underrepresented people including women, people from the Global South, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people, and other historically marginalised people.