International Crisis Group (ICG)

149 Avenue Louise, Level 24, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium

Phone : +32-2-502 90 38 / Fax : +32-2-502 50 38

Web site : www.crisisgroup.org

The International Crisis Group is now generally recognised as the world’s leading independent, non-partisan, source of analysis and advice to governments, and intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations, European Union and World Bank, on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict.

Crisis Group was founded in 1995 as an international non-governmental organisation on the initiative of a group of well known transatlantic figures who despaired at the international community’s failure to anticipate and respond effectively to the tragedies in the early 1990s of Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. They were led by Morton Abramowitz (former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Thailand, then President of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace), Mark Malloch Brown (later head of the UN Development Programme, UN Deputy Secretary-General and UK Minister), and its first Chairman, Senator George Mitchell. The idea was to create a new organisation – unlike any other – with a highly professional staff acting as the world’s eyes and ears for impending conflicts, and with a highly influential board that could mobilise effective action from the world’s policymakers.

Crisis Group’s international headquarters are in Brussels, with major advocacy offices in Washington DC (where it is based as a legal entity) and New York, a smaller one in London, and liaison presences in Moscow and Beijing. The organisation currently has regional offices or local field representation in Baku, Bangkok, Beirut, Bishkek, Bogotá, Bujumbura, Dakar, Damascus, Dili, Islamabad, Istanbul, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Kabul, Kathmandu, Kinshasa, Nairobi, Port-au-Prince, Pretoria, Pristina, Sarajevo, Seoul and Tbilisi, and with analysts working in over 60 crisis-affected countries and territories across four continents. These include in Africa, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.