Past campaigns

Crisis Action launched an emergency response to the February 2021 military coup and the subsequent violent suppression of peaceful protests.

We convened a coalition of Burmese and international partners to issue a joint statement, signed by over 200 organisations from five continents, calling for action to end the violence, and specifically a UN-enforced global arms embargo against Myanmar’s military junta. We ensured the letter was shared the world over, in media from the New York Times to the South China Morning Post, and through our #NotOneBulletMore social media campaign, seen by over 10 million globally in its first week alone.

With the UN Security Council unwilling to act and the regional Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) indecisive, we then set about engaging member states from across the UN in support of the statement’s message. This culminated with a UN General Assembly resolution calling for an end to all arms transfers and condemning the coup – only the third time since the end of the Cold War that the UN has issued such condemnation through the General Assembly. In the words of EU Ambassador Olof Skoog, this “sends a strong and powerful message…[that] delegitimises the military junta…and demonstrates its isolation in the eyes of the world”.

“Crisis Action’s efforts to build personal connections with the independent Russian media have created invaluable partnerships based on mutual trust and respect. Their work has enabled us to humanise Russia’s involvement in Syria, allowing the Russian public to see ordinary Syrians not as abstract entities, but as living, breathing people working hard for peace and justice.” – Olga Bobrova, Journalist, Novaya Gazeta 

Between 2011 and 2021, Crisis Action led a global coordinated response to the war in Syria. The war—which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and forced over 13 million people to flee their homes in terror—has spurred Crisis Action to support collaborative work to push for stronger action by parties to the conflict, the UN, the Arab League and the EU to further civilian protection.

Crisis Action’s Syria strategy had two main objectives. Firstly, to prevent major escalation and ensure humanitarian needs are met in the Northwest by keeping media and political attention on the plight of civilians in Idlib. Secondly, to raise pressure for progress on the release of detainees and truth for families, with an immediate focus on the need to improve access to places of detention, access to information on the missing, and the release of all of those who are being arbitrarily detained.

Crisis Action has worked with partners to devise and deliver joint advocacy including the following:

• Ensure the passage and subsequent renewal of Resolution 2585—the UN cross-border mechanism that supports the flow of vital humanitarian assistance into the opposition-held Northwest.
• Support our partners, Families for Freedom, in briefing the UNSC, as part of one of the Council’s first ever formal events on detainees.
• Support the release of a report from the Trust and Justice Charter group of Syrian detainees and families on the need for an international mechanism for missing persons.
• Convince the US to host a UNSC briefing on the 10th anniversary of the start of the war, keeping the issue of detainees on the global agenda and helping elicit commitments from member states to tackle detention.
• Bring together 11 embassy representatives and senior UN officials for a briefing on detainees hosted by the Swedish Embassy in Beirut.
• Support Syrian partners in making compelling cases for action on detention at a UN side event we moderated, ‘’Ten Years of Conflict in Syria’’, which was attended by UN ambassadors and officials.
• Support the makers of the Oscar-shortlisted documentary, For Sama, in speaking out about the situation in Idlib via an op-ed in The New York Times, an appeal outside the UN headquarters in New York for an end to the targeting of hospitals, and a screening of the film in Russia.
• Help maintain global media attention, diversify the array of voices commenting on the reality of life in Syria, and bring the conflict into Russian public discourage and popular culture and consciousness for the first time, by supporting rappers Amir Al-Muarri (from Idlib) and Marisol (from St Petersburg) to share hip-hop tracks criticising all belligerents targeting civilians in Syria. An audience of millions was reached via social media and coverage in outlets the world over, including Al Hurra, Al-Araby, the BBC, Der Tagespiegel,  Novaya Gazeta, and many more.
• Organize a first-of-its-kind ‘Anti-war Syria Talk’ in St. Petersburg, hosted by the Soldiers’ Mothers Committee and attended by wide range of Russian activists, enabling a dialogue between civil society in the two countries. Following the meeting, a series of small demonstrations broke out in the streets of St. Petersburg, suggesting growing opposition to the official Russian narrative on Syria.
• Support Syrian and Russian civil society to jointly file a landmark legal action against a Russian private contractor for its role in the torture of a detainee in Syria. The case, described as having potentially significant implications for accountability around the future treatment of detainees in Syria and beyond, is one of the groundbreaking collaborations stemming from a Crisis Action conference bringing together 40 Syrian and Russian civil society together in 2019.
• Support work on accountability for human rights violations in Idlib. In direct response to NGO demands, the findings of a UN Board of Inquiry formed to investigate attacks on schools and hospitals in Idlib were made public. The report’s conclusion that it was ‘highly probable’ that the government of Syria and/or its allies had carried out illegal airstrikes will help ensure future accountability.

In the spring of 2021, Crisis Action launched an emergency response to a new escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine, convening NGO partners and experts around the world to determine how to best secure protection for Israelis and Palestinians. It was agreed that we would move beyond a critique of the escalating violence and instead aim to unlock action to tackle root causes and prevent even bloodier escalations in the future – including encouraging the new Biden administration in the US to fulfil its commitment to uphold human rights, and use its leverage to help prevent a future recurrence of violence.

Working with one of the largest, most diverse coalitions that Crisis Action has ever assembled, we coordinated a global letter signed by 680 prominent individuals and organisations from 75 countries–including Israelis and Palestinians, world leaders and Nobel Laureates–calling on the US to show leadership in addressing the root causes of conflict. We supported promotion of the letter on social media (where the hashtag #NowIsTheTime was seen nearly 12 million times worldwide), and secured coverage of the letter from international media such as Al Jazeera and Mediapart to regional outlets such as the Palestine Chronicle and Gaza Post.

In the midst of escalating violence in Mozambique, Crisis Action launched an emergency response in February 2021.

The unrest was centred in resource-rich Cabo Delgado province, where insurgents overtook four districts. Hundreds were killed. More than half a million were displaced. An ineffectual response from Mozambique authorities and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the predominant regional inter-governmental body, raised the concerns of human rights and peacebuilding organisations across the region.

In response, Crisis Action coordinated a letter from 31 local and international NGOs to SADC, urging more decisive action in tackling the insurgency and maintaining humanitarian access for the 2.3 million residents of Cabo Delgado. We also organised a panel discussion of influential academics and think tanks, exploring how SADC should address the conflict. A Crisis Action-co-ordinated ‘Twitter storm’, timed to coincide with SADC’s May summit, reached over a million people across the region.

In June 2021, the SADC announced the deployment of a Standby Force, the formation of a Humanitarian and Emergency Response Operations Centre, and encouraged member states to work with humanitarian agencies in providing humanitarian support in affected areas – outcomes attributed by commentators in the region as the direct result of the advocacy efforts coordinated by Crisis Action.

In late September 2020, Crisis Action launched an emergency response to the outbreak of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

We engaged Russian, German and French officials, persuading them to play an active role in brokering peace. We worked with leading figures from both sides of the conflict—writers, activists, religious leaders (including His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church) and civil society activists—sharing their visions for peace with key policymakers and French, German and international media.

After a month-long campaign, a Russian-brokered peace deal resulted in ceasefire that has endured to this day, and our emergency response laid groundwork needed for partners, policy makers and activists to continue protecting local civilians into the future.

Responding to urgent calls from partners in the region, Crisis Action launched an emergency response in the wake of a wave of state-sponsored violence, intimidation and voter suppression in the lead-up to the Tanzanian elections of October 2020.

Our emergency response team worked with partners and allies, including Tanzania’s Centre for Strategic Litigation, the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Kituo Cha Katiba (Eastern Africa Centre for Constitutional Development), and Tanzania Elections Watch, to highlight unacceptable electoral practices. We worked to spread the message through national and international media and a social media campaign seen by more than 10 million people across the region.

Our team arranged for partners and other regional experts to brief senior UN and AU officials, leading to calls for free and fair elections from both UN Secretary-General António Guterres and AU Commission Chair Moussa Faki.

As a result, post-election violence was minimal. The attention of the UN, AU and international media had let Tanzanians—including President Magafuli—know that the world was watching.

The conflict that broke out in South Sudan in December 2013 and is estimated to have claimed over 400,000 lives entered its sixth year at the end of 2019. While the humanitarian situation remains dire with over 1.47 million internally displaced and 2.2 million South Sudanese forced to seek refuge in neighboring countries, a political breakthrough provided reason for cautious optimism. As a result of sustained pressure from regional and international actors, South Sudan’s leaders reached an eleventh-hour compromise to form a unity government on February 22, 2020.

Since 2013, Crisis Action together with partners worked to secure a lasting peace in South Sudan. Efforts to this end included building the capacity of South Sudanese civil society and coordinating global civil society efforts to ensure sustained regional and international pressure on parties to the conflict. These led to significant political breakthrough that led to the signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) in September 2018.

In this regard some of the highlights of our joint advocacy work with partners included:

• 2017 – Catalyzing the formation of the South Sudan Civil Society Forum and the Women’s Coalition on South Sudan for Peace as coordinating platforms for civil society actors to engage in collective advocacy. The effectiveness of these coalitions led to their inclusion in Track I negotiations and as signatories to the R-ARCSS. The Women’s Coalition succeeded to secure a 35% quota for women’s inclusion in government structures as a result. They continue to play a critical role in monitoring and pushing for accountability with the aim of ensuring that political actors in South Sudan remain committed to the obligations under the agreement.
• 2018 – Organizing the first ever Virtual Summit on South Sudan that brought together influential women leaders from across the globe to elevate the voices of South Sudan’s women leaders and galvanize international support to foster dialogue around solutions for a lasting and equitable peace in South Sudan including the silencing of guns in South Sudan. One of the key outcomes of this work was the adoption of an arms embargo on South Sudan by the United Nations Security Council.
• 2019 – Supporting a documentary story teller John Allan Namu and partners as they worked to expose the massive scale of war profiteering by South Sudanese and elites from around the world thereby drawing  global attention and pressure so as to stop South Sudan’s leaders from  further looting the country through Kenyan and Ugandan financial systems and prolonging the conflict for their own personal gain.
• 2020 – Applying pressure on the parties to the R-ARCSS to make compromises to pave way for the formation of the unity government and engaging the UNSC to renew the arms embargo as a measure to support the fragile peace context of South Sudan.

In March 2019, following a partner consultation, Crisis Action launched an emergency response on the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, where over seven million people are in need of urgent assistance, and from which four million people have already fled.

This was Crisis Action’s first initiative on Latin America and our goal was to get aid to those in need. We supported partners to urge the UN to scale up its response, and to ask key governments to use their influence with Venezuela to get them to accept international humanitarian assistance.

We coordinated a private letter to members of the European-led International Contact Group on Venezuela, urging them to demand greater humanitarian access and a scaled-up response. The letter was well received and soon afterward, the group issued a joint statement including strong demands to tackle the humanitarian crisis. In addition, we facilitated several visits from leading Venezuelan humanitarian, Feliciano Reyna of Acción Solidaria, to brief key UN officials and diplomatic missions.

In the lead-up to the Cameroonian elections in October 2018, Crisis Action launched an emergency response to the escalating conflict, which had seen horrific levels of violence and widespread displacement of civilians. The aim of the campaign was to get incumbent President Paul Biya and Anglophone separatist leaders to engage in a mediated dialogue.

A significant achievement of this short action was our bringing together of Anglophone and Francophone civil society organisations to co-strategise and work together towards promoting peace. 

In the wake of months of anti-government protests, which culminated in the overthrow of long-time President Omar al-Bashir, Crisis Action launched an emergency response on Sudan in April 2019 to urge a peaceful transition to civilian rule.

We focused efforts on encouraging the AU to listen to Sudanese civil society and insist that the military hand power to civilians.
Crisis Action facilitated three separate civil society statements, the demands of which were reflected in two strong statements from the AU, calling for a transition to civilian rule and setting a deadline for the handover. We also supported partners to produce two shadow reports to the AU on the progress towards transition.

We arranged for four Sudanese civil society delegates to brief the AU Commission, members of the Peace and Security Council, and diplomatic missions in Addis Ababa. Their testimony was hugely influential, with one ambassador telling us that he “could not betray” the delegates when voting to suspend Sudan from the AU.

Behind the scenes, Crisis Action facilitated a private letter to the AU Peace and Security Council from eight eminent Africans, and spurred leading business people to telephone AU officials and ministers on the eve of a critical vote and privately appeal for action to save lives.

On June 6, the AU suspended Sudan from the organisation and indicated its willingness to impose targeted sanctions. In July 2019, the Sudanese military agreed to form a civilian-led transitional government, which was the original objective of Crisis Action’s emergency response.

In March 2018, violence in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), increased with government-backed attacks carried out against demonstrators calling for elections to be held by the end of the year. The President, Joseph Kabila, is constitutionally barred from standing for a third term, but elections had already been delayed and there were widespread concerns within and beyond the country that they would not take place before the end of the year. Partners told us that the unrest could worsen an already-dire humanitarian situation, so Crisis Action launched an emergency response designed to prevent further violence and possible mass atrocities.

As the violence in the DRC worsened, partners and allies advised Crisis Action that the new South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, would have particular influence with President Kabila, not least because of his position as Chairperson of the South African Development Community (SADC), a powerful economic bloc of which the DRC is a member. Crisis Action therefore focused with partners on getting President Ramaphosa to encourage President Kabila to step down and enable a peaceful and timely transition of power. The thinking was that if President Ramaphosa spoke out other regional leaders would follow suit.

In the run up to an SADC meeting at the end of April, Crisis Action facilitated a joint letter from 11 South African, international and DRC diaspora organisations to President Ramaphosa, urging him to use his influence over President Kabila to encourage him to honour the election timeline. We also worked with human rights organisations to arrange a series of meetings in Johannesburg with diplomats, NGOs and the South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make the case for elections and President Ramaphosa’s intervention. Following these meetings we helped Human Rights Watch’s Regional Director obtain an interview with South Africa’s leading paper the Mail & Guardian.

On 24-25 April, President Ramaphosa and other heads of state from the SADC met in Angola to discuss the DRC’s security needs and the electoral crisis with President Kabila. The external communiqué was highly diplomatic without the express strong language partners had hoped to see on the DRC. However, officials present at the meeting revealed that internal discussions were much tougher, and that President Ramaphosa and the Angolan president, João Lourenço, impressed in strong terms that President Kabila needed to commit publicly to stepping down.

In September 2017, violence involving the government, rebels from the Muslim Séléka coalition and Christian anti-balaka militias began rapidly to intensify in the Central African Republic (CAR), a country where 1 in 2 people depend on aid to survive. The violence saw the number of displaced people rise to over one million, and the UN warned of “early warning signs of genocide” and “the risk of relapse into another large-scale humanitarian crisis”. Attacks on civilians and aid workers were escalating, and humanitarian agencies were pulling out or suspending operations, in spite of widespread need, because of the violence. Following a consultation with partners, Crisis Action decided to initiate an emergency response.

Despite knowing it would be no panacea, Crisis Action’s partners were unanimous that strengthening the UN peacekeeping force in CAR, known as MINUSCA, was crucial to avert mass atrocities. With a global shortage of skilled peacekeepers and fears of a reduction in US support to the UN, the challenge was daunting. We feared that the UN might ask for less than was needed, and that the Security Council might fail to agree to the increase in troops needed to protect civilians.

To tackle these dynamics, Crisis Action convened a diverse coalition which focused first on convincing the UN Secretary-General to ask the Security Council to boost the CAR force, and then on persuading the Council to respond positively to the Secretary-General’s recommendations.

We quickly coordinated joint letters and targeted media work to raise the profile of grim events on the ground, and these activities led to an invitation to meet face-to-face with the UN Secretary-General. Crisis Action enabled three NGO representatives, including an inspirational youth leader from CAR, to meet with António Guterres, who told them he was convinced that CAR needed more troops and that this was what he would be proposing to the Security Council. Senior UN officials praised the coalition’s work as “invaluable” and “impressive,” and said it helped convince the Secretary-General of the importance of taking action to protect civilians.

Following the report from the Secretary-General recommending a troop increase, Crisis Action supported partners to issue a joint letter, a policy brief and two op-eds, designed to encourage members of the Security Council to back the Secretary-General’s plan.
On November 15, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to add a further 900 peacekeepers to the UN mission in the Central African Republic. US State Department officials were among those that told us that NGO pressure was critical for influencing the Council’s decision.

Before ending the emergency response we set up a coordinating committee of key partners, and this group has continued to campaign effectively on CAR, working with the wider coalition we established. When Brazil backed out of an initial promise to provide extra troops, the coalition jumped into action to advocate for alternative troops to be provided to protect civilians at risk.

In late August 2017, Myanmar military forces and local Buddhist extremists attacked the ethnic minority Rohingya people in the country’s north-west Rakhine state. The atrocities – unprecedented in their scale – included looting and burning down Rohingya villages, mass killing of Rohingya civilians, gang rapes, and other acts of sexual violence. Although already focused on four conflicts, when almost 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee the country, Crisis Action took up a second emergency response to support partners to try to halt further ethnic cleansing and human suffering.

The European Union wields influence over Myanmar as a key donor, a provider of training to the military, and a key trade partner since 2012. In view of this, and knowing there was an EU Foreign Ministers meeting coming up in October 2017, a key pillar of Crisis Action’s emergency response was to encourage the EU to pass sanctions against the Myanmar authorities, selected businesses, and the military.

We coordinated a partner briefing for EU diplomats that made a compelling case for EU action and helped get Myanmar on the Foreign Ministers’ agenda. We also facilitated two private letters to EU foreign ministers and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, by over 20 humanitarian and human rights NGOs, calling on the EU to end cooperation with Myanmar and introduce targeted sanctions. We supported a Rohingya activist to publish a harrowing account of their experience in a key EU publication and coordinated a social media push by partners.

The work paid off with the EU agreeing to place some sanctions on Myanmar military figures in October, and then extending and deepening these, and an arms and equipment embargo, in February.

Alongside the advocacy in Brussels, we worked with partners on a number of meetings at the UN to raise the issue of the Myanmar crisis with member states, and spur an international response. Our efforts helped secure a strong Presidential Statement by the Security Council as well as a resolution at the UN General Assembly condemning ethnic cleansing of Rohingya.

The other strand of Crisis Action’s emergency response campaign was to put pressure on the Indian government not to expel 400,000 Rohingya refugees living in the country before a ruling by the Supreme Court.

In our first-ever major Indian coalition, Crisis Action helped craft an open letter to India’s Prime Minister Modi and secured 51 signatures by eminent Indian personalities including Shashi Tharoor, India’s former Minister of State and former UN Under-Secretary-General; Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s former Union Home Minister; and Miloon Kothari, former UN Special Rapporteur. The letter was covered by the Times of India (India’s most widely read English newspaper), The Quint and the Navbharat Times and tweeted by former Minister Tharoor to his 5.8m followers.

In March, policymakers warned Crisis Action of a potentially imminent aerial assault by the Saudi-led coalition on Yemen’s critical port of Hodeida, through which much of the food and aid was being imported for 17 million people in need. Crisis Action worked with our partner NGOs to increase the political costs for the Saudi coalition and its backers (including the US and UK) by galvanising an international outcry against the catastrophic humanitarian effects of such an attack on the port.

This included bringing together a group of over 40 ex-diplomats, humanitarian workers and experts to publicly highlight the risk of famine to British politicians. We also raised the alarm throughout our network, enabling partner NGOs to produce a joint statement, press releases, and to brief senior UN and UK policymakers. A UK government official told us that as a result of UK civil society pressure, the Prime Minister raised the importance of Hodeida and the humanitarian situation with Saudi King Salman and his defence minister.

The Times newspaper cited people close to the Saudi government saying that the international outcry on the humanitarian impact helped inspire them to step back from attacking the port.

Keeping up the pressure to avert an attack on Hodeida, in May, Crisis Action supported Radhya Almutawakel, Chairperson of Yemeni human rights organisation Mwatana, to brief the UN Security Council to call for the port to be protected. It was the first time a Yemeni civil society activist had ever done so. Crisis Action also organised a social media campaign with the hashtag #YemenCantWait, which reached over seven million people in a week.

After a year of near silence from the Security Council, it issued a strongly worded Presidential Statement to protect civilians, calling on the Hodeida port to be safeguarded as “a critical lifeline for humanitarian support”. The UK, French and Swedish governments told us that NGO pressure, which Crisis Action coordinated, was instrumental in this outcome. Given the US and UK supported this statement and are key backers of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, at the time of writing it seemed inconceivable that an attack could occur. Preventing the attack on the port has helped aid to continue to flow to millions in desperate need.

To increase pressure on Saudi Arabia and the US to be more careful in protecting civilians in Yemen, Crisis Action coordinated partners to bolster US Congressional opposition to the renewal of US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Crisis Action worked with Oxfam, the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the Yemen Peace Project to convene a roundtable on Yemen attended by 41 Congressional staffers that featured four US national security experts from conservative and progressive think tanks. We also enabled a former US ambassador to Yemen to privately urge senators to oppose the arms sales, and coordinating considerable media work in the US opposing the arms sales. While the US Senate ultimately approved the arms sales, they did so by a very narrow margin. The surprisingly high opposition (the highest ever opposition to Saudi arms sales) made clear the Senate’s concern for human rights violations in Yemen. It also increased scrutiny on how these arms were being used in Yemen and increased pressure on Saudi Arabia and the US to minimise civilian casualties in Yemen.

President Joseph Kabila’s second presidential term is scheduled to end on 19 December 2016. However, the government is citing barriers to holding new elections, which implies an extension of his second term. The subsequent standoff between the Government in Kinshasa and the opposition has led to heightened political tensions throughout the country. In August 2016, Crisis Action mobilised an emergency response in anticipation of the political crisis escalating into violence and further human rights abuses against civilians.

In light of the political deadlock, which many warned could jeopardize the DRC’s fragile peace and stability and result in grave humanitarian consequences throughout the region, Crisis Action is working with partners to prevent massive violence against civilians if elections dates aren’t announced in the near future. To this end, we will seek to increase pressure on all parties, including on the AU facilitator for the national dialogue, to ensure the outcomes of the talks are acceptable to key opposition figures, and that they agree on a revised calendar for elections in 2017.

“Crisis Action plays the invaluable role of connecting the grim realities for civilians in Yemen with the corridors of power. Even while millions of people need humanitarian aid and thousands have been killed, Yemen is a largely ignored conflict. Crisis Action’s savvy lies in finding and working with unexpected and influential voices to confront politicians powerfully with the consequences of their decisions. Modestly staying out of the public limelight, Crisis Action’s vital work with its partners and allies can and does have real influence where it matters.”  Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP, former UK International Development Secretary

In March 2015 Saudi Arabia led a coalition of countries in a campaign of airstrikes and a naval blockade of Yemen. They were intervening on the side of forces loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in a conflict that had erupted a week earlier with the Houthis and former President Ali Abdallah Saleh. Within months, thousands of people were killed, the country was on the brink of famine, and four in every five Yemenis needed humanitarian assistance. Both sides were committing widespread violations of international humanitarian law.

In response to the deteriorating situation for Yemeni civilians, Crisis Action began an emergency response in August 2015. The objective was a ceasefire, and the focus would be a push in the UK and US: although the Houthis were also responsible for breaching international humanitarian law and the human rights of other Yemenis, the British and American alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and KSA’s sensitivity to criticism in Western media presented a real prospect for impact.

Alongside partners’ effort, we worked with:

• Humanitarian partners in briefings with US and UK legislators, which led to Senators and Members of Parliament challenging their governments’ policy on Yemen
• Former UK International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell MP, whose piece in the Guardian, arguing that the UK had outsourced foreign policy to Gulf allies, led to reports of growing disquiet in the UK Foreign Office
• A joint letter from 13 partners to the European Union Foreign Affairs Council, which was used by members of the Council to ensure that the UK and others agreed to a call for a ceasefire
• Major General Tim Cross (retired), who argued in the Telegraph that the UK had a responsibility as an ally of Saudi Arabia to highlight that KSA was not acting in British, Saudi, or Yemeni interests and should shift from a failing military strategy to a political strategy and securing a ceasefire
• Yemeni intellectuals, Farea Al-Muslimi and Rafat Al-Akhali, who wrote in the New York Times that the leaders of the warring parties should stop the fighting and lift their blockade;
• Former UK Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who argued in The Times “the UK must reflect on how it can best support a durable peace process and stability in the region” by reviewing its arms sales to Saudi Arabia and working urgently to restore a ceasefire. This followed the release of a legal opinion by Philippe Sands, which was commissioned by Amnesty, Saferworld, and others, and which featured on the BBC’s Newsnight programme. Sands argued that the UK’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia were in breach of domestic and international laws, given violations of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

Political talks began in Kuwait in April along with a partial cessation of hostilities. This led to a dramatic reduction in airstrikes and fighting on the ground, and for the first time there was expectation among analysts that the political talks would produce a deal that would sustain these gains for the protection of civilians. On 25 April 2016 the UN Security Council also called for a roadmap for ending the conflict and establishing security and governance, asked the Secretary General to report back within 30 days, and urged all parties to adhere to the cessation of hostilities.

Information from contacts at the UN, Arab League and the Security Council, as well as Yemen analysts, suggested that part of the reason Saudi Arabia in particular was keen to secure a deal was due to the criticism in the West of how the conflict in Yemen was being conducted, much of which was coordinated and catalysed by Crisis Action with our allies and partners.

On the basis that our collective efforts contributed to the momentum towards a ceasefire, Crisis Action decided at the end of April 2016 to exit from the Yemen emergency response.

In September 2016, Crisis Action launched an emergency response in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the face of escalating protests over President Kabila’s apparent reluctance to step down after his allotted two terms. Advised by a coalition of NGOs, including Congolese women’s group SEPPAF; Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA); Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group, we designed a strategy to prevent election-related violence through forging agreement on an electoral process with sufficient support from President Kabila, key opposition figures, and civil society.

The collective strategy Crisis Action co-ordinated aimed to achieve an agreement on a political transition by using three sets of powerful messengers.

First, with partners, including Christian Aid and CAFOD (the Catholic international development charity of England and Wales), we identified the Catholic bishops of the DRC as having critical leverage, being the main non-state actors respected by the people, the opposition and President Kabila himself. Working with CAFOD, we shared insight and analysis from our Congolese and international partners with the bishops, as well as encouragement to use their influence to mediate for peace. In October, Crisis Action planned a trip to the African Union for the bishops, so they could make the case for a new approach to mediating the crisis. The trip was cancelled at the last minute when President Kabila himself asked the bishops to facilitate negotiations in Kinshasa.

Secondly, to complement the work of the bishops, we also identified key women’s organisations with the potential to influence President Kabila. Crisis Action brought together 80 women’s groups from 25 countries in an open letter to urge President Kabila to respect the constitution and take the “chance for the first ever peaceful transition of power in the country’s history”. The coalition’s call, which referred to the widespread sexual violence experienced by women and girls, was covered by influential media and amplified globally by partners.

Lastly, participants at a roundtable in South Africa with Open Society Initiative for South Africa (OSISA) and other partners identified the influence of the Presidents of Angola and Congo-Brazzaville on President Kabila. Taking this insight Crisis Action worked with three prominent African women leaders to privately urge these presidents to use that influence for peace. Those leaders were Nobel Laureate, Leymah Gbowee; winner of the Ginetta Sagan award for women human rights champions, Julienne Lusenge; and African Union Goodwill Ambassador, Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda.

On 31 December 2016, the bishops successfully brokered a landmark deal for political transition and elections by the end of 2017. The agreement reflected the demands of the women’s coalitions that Crisis Action had co-ordinated, reducing tension in the country and averting what was predicted to have been widespread violence.

“Crisis Action gave us Burundian activists a rare platform to speak truth to power at a critical moment.” Dr. Marie Louise Baricako, Chairperson, Burundi Women and Girls’ Movement for Peace and Security Co-Lead of the Burundi Civil Society Leaders’ Delegation to the UN Security Council, April 2016

Burundi was thrown into a state of turmoil in April 2015 when the country’s President of 10 years, Pierre Nkurunziza, decided to stand for a third term in office. Many Burundians saw his re-election bid as unconstitutional and a violation of the 2000 Arusha Accords that brought peace to the country after a 12 year civil war (1993-2005). Thousands of people took to the streets to protest, only to be met with a heavy-handed response from government security forces and its armed youth militia. Intimidation, arbitrary arrests and targeted killings of civil society, journalists and the opposition followed. Tens of thousands fled the country to avoid the violence.

Crisis Action launched an emergency response to prevent the country from spiraling back into armed conflict. Ahead of the elections, Crisis Action:

• Worked with Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, former prime minister of Tanzania and former Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Unity, to produce a powerful opinion piece calling for concrete steps to de-escalate the situation and mobilise concerted regional and international action to bring Burundi back from the brink.
• Forged a coalition of international, regional and Burundian groups to advocate for peaceful, credible, transparent and inclusive elections. Additionally, Crisis Action partnered with African NGOs to target regional powers with influence over Burundi. A joint letter to the African Union, East African Community and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region encouraged them to push for dialogue and de-escalation.

Soon afterwards, in an echo of the NGOs’ language, the East African Community called for the “urgent disarmament of all armed youth groups allied to political parties”. The Presidential election went ahead on 21 July 2015 and the Electoral Commission announced President Nkurunziza had won with 70% of the vote. The situation remained tense, leaving people still fearful of a return to conflict, and the crackdown on human rights became more entrenched. Given the continuing demand for international action to prevent further conflict, Crisis Action remained engaged in the effort to protect civilians at risk by:

• Bringing a delegation of Burundian civil society leaders to Brussels, where they urged representatives from the European Union and its member states to use its political and financial leverage over the Burundian government to bring about a reduction in human rights violations. By invoking so called “Article 96 consultations” the EU was able to threaten a suspension of direct budgetary assistance to the Burundian government.
• Working with leading Burundian human rights activists to help them publish media articles calling for the EU to start these consultations, which did commence in October 2015.

In February 2016 the EU announced it would suspend development aid paid directly to the Burundian government, while still funding humanitarian programmes and non-government development projects. The consultations remain open, and EU development aid to the government remains under review, creating an incentive for the government to change course.

When armed violence escalated to a new level on 11 December 2015, the African Union Peace and Security Council took the unprecedented step of deciding to send an African peacekeeping mission to Burundi to stabilize the situation and avert mass atrocity crimes. The Government of Burundi was quick to condemn the decision, warning that armed troops would be treated as an invasion force. To put pressure on the AU to press ahead with its decision to send peacekeepers, Crisis Action:

• Brought together a powerful coalition of eminent African business and civic leaders, including former UN human rights Chief Navi Pillay, Africa’s youngest billionaire, Ashish Thakkar, mobile communications entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim, and others. In an open letter delivered to key African Heads of State ahead of the AU Summit in January 2016, the coalition called upon the Africa’s leaders to implement their decision and stabilize the situation. The open letter was covered widely by a variety of leading African media outlets, and on social media.

Unfortunately, the decision was over-ruled by African Heads of State, who were unwilling to send a peacekeeping mission without the consent of the host government. In the aftermath of the AU’s inaction, Crisis Action and our partners shifted focus to the UN Security Council, where the idea of a UN police force to protect civilians was gaining ground. In order to bring about this outcome, Crisis Action:

• Brought a high-profile delegation of Burundian civil society leaders to New York in April 2016 to speak directly to the Security Council, just as it was considering whether UN police should be sent to Burundi, and what role they should play.
  The delegation’s key message to the Security Council was that it should unite to urgently send an independent UN police force to Burundi to protect the population and create an enabling environment to de-escalate political tensions.

Three months later, at the end of July 2016, the UN Security Council approved a resolution authorising the deployment of UN police to Burundi, as the delegation had urged. This was a positive step to deter human rights abuses.

Having achieved the campaign objective of the UN agreeing to a police force and amid warnings of election-related violence in Burundi’s neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Crisis Action took the difficult decision to scale down our efforts on Burundi and kick off an emergency response on the DRC.

We supported international, regional and Burundian partners to stay connected in their efforts to demand political talks include civil society and sustain the pressure on the government and opposition not to resort to widespread violence.

“The work I did with Crisis Action highlighted an invaluable feature of their model: starting from an assumption that nothing can be achieved working alone, they put the strategic impact above any consideration for their own profile.  This approach – and the energy they assign to this application – could be a lesson across many other sectors.”   General Sir Nick Parker, KCB CBE ADC, Deputy Commander for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan between Nov. 2009 and Sept. 2010.

With widespread warnings of violence around the delayed Presidential elections in Nigeria on 28th March 2015 and increasing attacks on civilians from Boko Haram, Crisis Action launched an Emergency Response to support partners’ advocacy for the protection of civilians.

Crisis Action worked with partners to develop a two-pronged strategy focused on reducing the risk of election-related violence and protecting civilians in Boko Haram-affected areas.

To prevent election-related violence, Crisis Action worked with:

• The Chair of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu, on an opinion piece calling for the international community to support efforts to maintain calm around the elections, published in the Huffington Post and Zeit Online.
• Actors and celebrities with Nigerian roots including Hotel Rwanda star Nakeem Kae-Kazim and Stephen K Amos to put out messages through social media supporting a peaceful and credible election.

Thankfully, and contrary to even optimistic projections, the Presidential elections passed largely peacefully with only pockets of violence. This was a momentous achievement for the country, marking the first time in Nigeria’s history that there has been a peaceful change in President through free, fair, democratic elections.

To support partners’ efforts to improve the protection of civilians in Boko Haram-affected areas, Crisis Action helped:

• Seven human rights and civilian protection organisations successfully influence UN Security Council deliberations on Boko Haram. A joint briefing highlighting the key components needed in a UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) to tackle Boko Haram comprehensively and ensure civilians are not put at greater risk was coordinated. Using this joint briefing, Crisis Action facilitated partners’ advocacy towards policymakers in London, New York, Brussels, The Hague and Paris. The key messaging featured in the latest drafts of the UNSCR before negotiations stalled, including calls for a civilian casualty tracking unit.
• Eleven Nigerian and West African civil society leaders publicly appeal to the Nigerian leadership to put their weight behind the draft UNSCR to ensure that civilians are not put at greater risk. The public appeal was published on ReliefWeb and in The Telegraph, and circulated widely among policymakers.
• Humanitarian partners with operations in Nigeria communicated the realities in the field to discussions in the UN. The Nigerian Mission to the UN subsequently quoted these findings, word for word, at the Security Council to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria.
• Coordinate national-level advocacy in Nigeria by a coalition of leading Nigerian civil society leaders with strong links to the new government. By helping them speak with one voice, we helped ensure core messaging was quoted verbatim in a submission to the Transitional Committee that has shaped the new government’s approach to Boko Haram.
• British General, Sir Nick Parker, with an op-ed on Boko Haram published in the UK and Nigeria, published by The Times, The Guardian Nigeria and The Huffington Post, highlighting President Buhari’s commitments to hold human rights abusers in the Nigerian military are held to account. General Parker urged the international community to support the Nigerian military in an approach that addresses the underdevelopment and grievances that drive the insurgency.

The Boko Haram insurgency over 6 years has claimed around 15,000 lives. However, from controlling approximately 20,000 square miles of territory, the size of Boko Haram’s territories had significantly diminished in 2016. The Nigerian Army’s regional offensive has recaptured key territories and recovered arms as well as launched a rehabilitation programme for defecting Boko Haram members. Although progress had been made, attacks blamed on Boko Haram still persisted and in early 2016 evidence suggested that the group still held territory and operated bases in some remote rural northern areas of Nigeria. Whilst attacks persist our Nigerian and international partners will continue to work to ensure that efforts to fully defeat the insurgency make civilians safer.

“I have been delighted to contribute to Crisis Action’s well-timed efforts to reduce conflict in Sudan and increase awareness of its consequences. Their brand of organised parliamentary and media events has struck me as very professional – and the collaborative model much more effective than voices in isolation.” Sir John Holmes, former UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs

Crisis Action works with civil society in Africa and around the world to seek lasting peace in Sudan and South Sudan. Much of the current advocacy we facilitate for partners targets the United Nations, African Union and League of Arab States to ensure the two Sudans peacefully and comprehensively resolve all outstanding post-secession issues.

Crisis Action began work on Sudan in 2005, responding to the mass atrocities and gross human rights abuses committed against hundreds and thousands of civilians in Darfur. Crisis Action played a key role in coordinating part of the global Darfur campaign that brought the conflict in Darfur to the very top of the global political agenda and prompted concerted action by the UN Security Council, including authorization of a major peacekeeping force to protect civilians.

In 2010, we expanded our focus as it became clear that there was an urgent need to prevent widespread conflict between North and South Sudan in the run-up to, and following, the referendum on South Sudan’s independence. We built a global coalition covering 20 countries to undertake joint advocacy and campaigns towards those governments that had acted as ‘Guarantors’ of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. High-level policy makers have confirmed these coordinated efforts helped them to intensify their efforts to ensure the referendum went ahead on time and without violence.

Since the outbreak of renewed violence in the border region between Sudan and South Sudan in mid 2011, Crisis Action has supported partners to engage with governments to bring an end to the resulting humanitarian crisis in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile that has affected over one million people and on preventing a return to all-out war between the two Sudans. We organised delegations of Sudanese civil society leaders to address members of the UN Security Council, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, members of the African Union Peace and Security Council and the League of Arab States. We have also worked with prominent figures, humanitarian and human rights NGOs, Sudanese activists and faith leaders to speak out about the humanitarian emergency and bring the need for a resolution higher up the political agenda.

“Crisis Action punches well above its weight because it is so smart in leveraging the diverse capacities of its partners. I saw this in practice when it worked with us so effectively in drawing world attention to the desperate but forgotten situation in the Nuba Mountains.” Dr Mukesh Kapila, Special Representative Aegis Trust and former United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan

“Crisis Action helped me to gain privileged access to high-level French officials at the Foreign Ministry and Presidency. Thanks to their nimble coordination behind the scenes, I had the opportunity to directly influence the French government on the devastating security and humanitarian crises in the Central African Republic (CAR). Crisis Action also helped organize several live television interviews, providing me with a public platform to sound the alarm on the crisis that was unfolding in my country.” – Archbishop of Bangui

In March 2013, after months of fighting, the Seleka rebel coalition overthrew the government and Seleka leader Michel Djotodia proclaimed himself President, leading the Central African Republic (CAR) into a massive humanitarian and security crisis. Responding to partners, Crisis Action helped:

• Set up a call with key UN agencies in CAR and international human rights and humanitarian NGOs to develop a quick strategy on how best to respond;
• Build a coalition of 9 leading aid agencies and the Archbishop of Bangui to highlight the scale of the humanitarian crisis and call for more aid. The joint call, developed with the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), preceded a trip to CAR by OCHA head, Valerie Amos;
• Coordinate press work that shone global media attention on CAR’s entire affected 4.6 million population, the displacement of over 200,000 people, the risk of the crisis destabilising the whole of Central Africa. Media highlights included a front page feature in the New York Times (referencing the humanitarian disaster from the joint presser Crisis Action facilitated and quoting partners Amnesty International and FIDH), live news interviews at France 24 and TV5Monde (in which the Archbishop highlighted the “disastrous consequences of the rebellion on human lives”) and wire coverage in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Africa Review and more;
• Work with leading human rights and conflict prevention groups to call on the UN, AU and France to protect human rights and restore security and appeal to the international community for more human rights monitors and donor funding. Officials from the UN Departments for Political and Peacekeeping Affairs and the High Commissioner for Human Rights responded favourably;
• Organise meetings to call upon key policymakers to implement the above recommendations. In Paris, this included a high-level meeting for the Archbishop and Crisis Action partners at the Elysée Palace with President Hollande’s Office as well as meetings with the Foreign and Defence Ministries in order to bring humanitarian and security recommendations to the direct attention of French policymakers. Meanwhile, in New York we organised meetings with key UN Security Council members ahead of a July Security Council briefing on CAR.

In July 2013, the AU agreed to create an African led force in CAR to better protect civilians, as the joint call had urged. The collective advocacy set the benchmark for public discourse and its key points were subsequently echoed by Amos, EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva and others. The CAR coup leader’s direct response to the joint NGO press release – that security has improved and denying accusations of “aid groups” also underscored that the Crisis Action-facilitated advocacy cut through to the highest levels in CAR. Also in July 2013, the UK and EU pledged a further $8 million each in aid and in August, France announced that it has made available a further 2 million euros in aid – one of the key objectives of the joint ask. At the request of President Hollande, Crisis Action also went on to facilitate a meeting with him for partners.

“Look at the Christian and Muslim leaders who came together in the Central African Republic to reject violence – listen to the Imam who said, “Politics try to divide the religious in our country, but religion shouldn’t be a cause of hate, war, or strife.””  Barak Obama, President of the United States in his speech at the UN General Assembly – Sept 2014

“Crisis Action has assembled a highly effective civil society coalition to keep the plight of the people of Gaza living under the blockade before the eyes of the public and decision-makers in Europe. The organisation has played a vital role in helping to mobilise the clearer, more consistent international position needed to finally end the blockade” John Ging, Former director of UNRWA, Operations in Gaza

Since 2007, Crisis Action has supported its partners to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on civilians. Crisis Action first worked with partners to focus on the situation in the Gaza Strip and urge governments to take action to lift the blockade imposed on the Gaza population. This campaign included a series of major joint NGO reports that raised media attention to Gaza and contributed to a strengthened European stance against the blockade and to a partial easing of some restrictions since 2010. Regrettably, the blockade remains in place despite the partial softening and risks being perpetuated further.

Besides the blockade, Crisis Action has also supported partners in calling for accountability for violations by all parties during the 2009 war as well as for clear European support for Palestinian reconciliation. In 2009, Crisis Action engaged with partners to highlight key inconsistencies in the EU’s position on the Middle East Peace Process, which contributed to a much bolder EU position adopted in December 2009.

Since the end of 2011, Crisis Action has worked with partners to address the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as one of the key obstacles to peace and a source of large-scale violations of international law and human rights. Crisis Action forged a coalition to urge the EU to move from rhetorical condemnation of the settlements to taking practical action.

Among many other activities, Crisis Action facilitated the publication of the report ‘Trading Away Peace’ by a large coalition of European civil society organisations. The report outlined a clear set of measures to close key loopholes in EU policies that have allowed the settlements to benefit from EU funding and trade.

In July 2013, the EU released guidelines firmly excluding the settlements from EU funding programmes. The EU has also committed to adopt guidelines on accurate labelling of products made in the settlements on occupied land to enable the consumers to distinguish them from products made within Israel.

“The report ‘Trading Away Peace’ is an important and powerful synopsis of issues surrounding the illegal settlements, which are an increasingly destructive element both in the lives of Palestinians and in relation to the very concept of a peace agreement in the Middle East.” Eamon Gilmore, Irish Foreign Minister

When M23 rebels mounted a surprise takeover of Goma, in November 2012, violence forced tens of thousands of people from their homes. Crisis Action quickly mobilised an emergency response to put the protection of civilians at the top of the international community’s efforts to address the crisis.

A year of intensive campaigning by Crisis Action’s partners on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2011-12 had yielded significant results. In June 2012, the United Nations passed a resolution with a new mandate for MONUSCO, its peacekeeping mission in DRC, incorporating key recommendations from the joint NGO report facilitated by Crisis Action, ‘Taking a Stand on Security Sector Reform’.

With this new mandate in place, Crisis Action concluded work on DRC as a long-term priority campaign, but continued to monitor the situation. When violence erupted in Goma in November, Crisis Action swiftly responded, facilitating a round of high-level briefings with key UN officials and Security Council members. These meetings gave partners the opportunity to articulate the scale of the humanitarian need arising from the conflict and raise concerns about civilian protection.

Crisis Action also supported 15 leading international advocacy organisations to highlight Rwanda’s support for the M23 insurgency and call on President Barack Obama to support a range of initiatives to strengthen the international response to the crisis. These included:

• Appointing a presidential envoy to lead a coordinated US response to the crisis.
• Supporting the appointment of a high-level UN envoy to the Great Lakes region to work with the African Union (AU) to broker durable political agreements between regional governments with the aim of stemming recurrent attacks across DRC’s borders.
• Supporting the imposition of robust sanctions against violators of the UN arms embargo on DRC, as recommended by the UN Panel of Experts on DRC.
• Cutting all military assistance and suspending other non-humanitarian aid to Rwanda while publicly condemning the Rwandan government for its support of the M23 insurgency.

Proposals for a UN-appointed Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region were supported by the US Government and others, and Mary Robinson took up the post in late March 2013. It is hoped that through her role she will help the AU and other key players to address the causes of the cycle of violence in the region and find a route towards lasting peace.

“Time and again, Crisis Action spots the opportunities to boost our advocacy impact by drawing us into timely, effective collective efforts to influence key decision-makers and achieve positive changes in how refugees and internally displaced people are protected.” Michel Gabaudan, President, Refugees International

After months of bitter fighting between the government of Mali and rival rebel groups, armed Islamic insurgents gained control of the north of the country. With the United Nations Security Council considering military intervention, Crisis Action worked with partners to influence the force’s mandate to ensure that any deployment made a positive contribution to the protection of civilians on the ground.

In October 2012, when the United Nations (UN) began to consider options for military intervention in northern Mali to wrest control from armed Islamic groups, partners sought Crisis Action’s support to ensure that the already dire situation for civilians in this vast area was not exacerbated by UN action.

Crisis Action responded by helping to devise an emergency strategy for collective advocacy to secure agreements over the remit of any UN-authorised force sent to Mali. The campaign aimed to ensure that any military deployment was directed to prioritise civilian protection and that the troops deployed did not include soldiers guilty of grave human rights violations.

Influencing the UN Secretary-General

In November, with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon due to make a report on Mali to the Security Council, Crisis Action and partners sought to influence his position. The coalition’s aim was to ensure the Secretary-General stressed to member states that any international military response must protect Mali’s people, while minimising the risk of human rights abuses or breaches of international humanitarian law during its deployment.

Crisis Action coordinated two private complementary briefs to the Secretary-General setting out partners’ concerns about the adverse impact a military operation in Mali could have on civilians. Recognising that the Security Council was under significant political pressure to take action to end the insurgency, the briefs also called on the Secretary-General to ensure that any UN-sanctioned military deployment to Mali would:

• Receive training on international human rights and humanitarian law ahead of their deployment and adhere to these standards.
• Provide the Council with regular, public reports of steps taken to minimise harm to civilians and their property, paying particular attention to protection measures for women and children.
• Strictly apply the procedures outlined in the UN’s Human Rights Due Diligence Policy to vet all peacekeepers and reject anyone with a track record of grave human rights abuses.
• Be accompanied by a strong and well-resourced team of UN human rights monitors, who would regularly and publicly report back on findings from the ground.
• Co-operate fully with any investigation launched in relation to Mali by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The coalition also urged Ban Ki-moon to warn member states that neither the suffering of Mali’s people nor the country’s political crisis would be resolved solely through a military response. It stressed the need to prioritise support for a peaceful political process alongside any UN deployment.

To reinforce these messages, Crisis Action facilitated follow-up advocacy meetings for partners with  the UN Secretary-General, as well as other senior UN figures. As a result, Ban Ki-Moon’s report to the Security Council incorporated all of the coalition’s points, with the exception of the reference to the ICC.

Influencing Security Council members

Buoyed by the strong support of Ban Ki-moon, Crisis Action helped partners turn their focus towards the decisions of Council members in response to the Secretary General’s recommendations. This involved facilitating joint lobbying of key Security Council ambassadors to secure commitments on specific language around mitigating harm to civilians in the operational outline for an African-led international force.

Then, in December, just before the Council was due to adopt a resolution on Mali, Crisis Action worked with ten humanitarian partners operating in Mali to produce a joint media release designed to keep the pressure up.

The result of these collective efforts was Resolution 2085, which reflected almost all of the campaign’s recommendations. In particular, it stated that:

• Any military operation would be linked to a series of benchmarks, including progress on a political solution, and training for international and Malian troops in their obligations under international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law.
• The Secretary-General would be required to report to the Council every 90 days about the mission’s activities, focusing on: the situation for the Malian people; any violations of international law; and mitigating any adverse impact of military operations on civilians.
• The mission would include civilian-led delivery of humanitarian assistance in accordance with international humanitarian law.
• The mission should support the ICC in its investigations of human rights violations.

Partners subsequently built on the campaign’s success to ensure that the Security Council upheld these commitments when, in April 2013, they eventually mandated a UN stabilisation force for Mali, following in the wake of an unexpected French-led military intervention that was launched in January 2013.

“At a crucial moment for Afghanistan, Christian Aid joined forces with Crisis Action to convene organizations from Europe, Afghanistan and the US and together send a powerful message to world leaders that their policies must first and foremost serve the Afghan people.” Loretta Minghella, Director,  Christian Aid

The latest round of conflict in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, with the launching of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. Over ten years later public confidence in a positive outcome from the conflict had sunk to a new low.

Against this complex and politically-charged backdrop, Crisis Action brought together humanitarian, human rights and peace-building organisations to call for international backing for a new strategic approach, including: a just and inclusive peace process; measures to protect civilians from casualties; and action to ensure aid is steered towards long-term, civilian-led development.

In November 2010, in the run-up to the NATO Summit in Lisbon, Crisis Action launched a joint paper ‘Piecemeal or Peace Deal: NATO, Peace Talks and a Political Settlement in Afghanistan’, by Christian Aid, the Open Society Foundations and the Oxford Research Group. In March 2011 the umbrella campaign, ‘Together Afghanistan’, brought together the largest international coalition on Afghanistan to influence governments meeting in Bonn to forge the next phase of policy on Afghanistan. The campaign included the release of polling of Afghan public opinion on the impact of conflict, peaceful demonstrations across key European capitals and media work with former political leaders and Afghan experts backing the new approach. Crisis Action also organised for a delegation of Afghan civil society leaders to meet with high-level officials and media across Europe to underline the importance of putting the civilian population at the heart of international policy.

“We salute Crisis Action’s ability to drive effective lobbying and lead on joint campaigns on armed conflict. Our collaboration with them on Afghanistan is highly valued – we benefit a lot from their important information, key contacts and efficiently led coalitions.” –  Jessica Mosbahi, Advocacy and Human Rights Officer, Medica Mondiale

“As the world grappled with how to deal with the crisis in Myanmar, Crisis Action was able to effectively channel civil society’s efforts to bring about change. It played a unique role” Irene Khan, then Secretary General of Amnesty International

Following the Burmese regime’s brutal suppression of peaceful mass protests in September 2007, Crisis Action supported Burmese campaign groups to call on the international community to put greater pressure on the Burmese regime to end the military crackdown.

Crisis Action co-ordinated a global day of action across five continents, including the largest ever UK demonstration on Burma involving NGOs, representatives from all major faiths, women’s groups, trade unions and student bodies. As public pressure built around the world, Crisis Action worked with partners to push EU member states to endorse the imposition of additional targeted EU sanctions against the Burmese regime and to urge the UN Security Council to speak out.  China responded to pressure by allowing the first ever UN Security Council Presidential Statement on Burma to be issued and the EU increased punitive measures against the regime.

In June 2009, following the Burmese regime’s decision to put Aung San Suu Kyi on trial for breach of her house arrest and their failure to release political prisoners, Crisis Action helped partners launch the ’64 for Suu’ campaign around her 64th birthday. Celebrities and prominent politicians, including Bono, Paul McCartney, Julia Roberts, Gordon Brown, Mary Robinson, 41 German MPs and a wide range of Asian politicians backed the campaign. It resulted in an EU commitment to take further targeted measures against the Burmese regime if the opposition leader was not released and a decision by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to visit Burma to press for her release and that of other political prisoners.

Aung San Suu Kyi was released in November 2010.

“In a matter of hours Crisis Action pulled together the biggest grouping of UK NGOs that have ever worked on Burma. They took the lead in organising the largest demonstration on Burma that there has ever been in the UK, and they did so in just one week. Crucially, it gave new political momentum to demands for the international community to take action. None of this would have happened without Crisis Action.” Mark Farmaner, Director, Burma Campaign UK

“Crisis Action helped us to give a voice to messages from Chadian civil society in Brussels and to promote a greater EU involvement in the crisis in Chad. Its flexible model allowed it to adjust to our needs and to bring real added value to our work in France by echoing it in Brussels, where our capacity was limited.” Bruno Angsthelm, Head of Africa Programme, Comité Catholique Contre la Faim et pour le Développement

The terrible conflict in Darfur led hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee across the border into Chad. In 2007 Crisis Action sought to help partners address the plight of women in refugee camps and highlight the violence and sexual abuse they were suffering. Crisis Action organised for a group of high profile international women who had recently travelled to refugee camps in Chad to meet top politicians and heads of state across the EU and relay what they had seen. The delegation included Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister of Nigeria and Angelique Kidjo.

In summer 2007, France led negotiations in the EU to send a force to Eastern Chad to provide protection to refugees from Darfur. Crisis Action helped partners engage with the French government and military planners to emphasise the need for neutrality of this force and for a clear distinction between humanitarian work and military activities. We also helped Chadian civil society representatives contribute to the EU’s discussions. The EU eventually deployed an EU Force to Eastern Chad and the North of the Central African Republic in early 2008.

“Crisis Action came into its own during the Lebanon war. Its light touch, yet reliable, creative and professional coordination allowed Save the Children to amplify our advocacy through coalition when it was appropriate whilst at the same time not constraining us when we needed to tread our own path. In such a highly political environment, it provided a perfect vehicle for bringing disparate voices together and resonate the public mood.”  Martin Kirk, Public Affairs Advisor, Save the Children

July 2006 saw the explosion of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. The conflict would eventually kill an estimated 1,300 Lebanese and 165 Israelis. It also displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000–500,000 Israelis.

Crisis Action became the hub for NGOs working on the crisis. We coordinated a group of aid agencies, faith groups, trade unions and human rights organisations to pressure Tony Blair to publicly back an immediate ceasefire. The campaign included humanitarian press conferences, public petitions to the Prime Minister and coordinated outreach to British MPs to establish and publicise their position on the conflict.

The collective advocacy demonstrated an overwhelming parliamentary majority in favour of a ceasefire and resulted in the recall of a UK Parliamentary Committee from recess to debate UK policy on Lebanon and demand that a ceasefire be endorsed.

“Aid agencies, which often remain silent on contentious political issues, have been some of the most vocal critics of Mr Blair’s Middle East policy since the start of the war in Lebanon.” David Fickling, The Guardian

“Since Crisis Action arrived on the scene it’s been night and day in terms of coordinated advocacy, at the UN and globally, to combat the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Crisis Action has anticipated and created unique advocacy moments on the LRA at the AU, UN, EU and key capitals.” Paul Ronan, Director of Advocacy, Resolve

Since 2008, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has killed at least 2,300 people, abducted more than 3,000 and displaced more than 440,000 civilians from South Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic.

Since late 2010, Crisis Action has been instrumental in catalysing an international response to the LRA crisis. Crisis Action coordinated joint advocacy towards the UN Security Council that led the UN to launch an urgent regional response to the LRA and establish a more responsive UN presence in LRA-affected areas. This successfully prevented a repeat of the LRA’s “Christmas massacres” of 2008 and 2009 in which hundreds of civilians had been killed.

Crisis Action’s Nairobi office organised briefings with leading AU officials participating in talks on how to address the LRA threat. The AU subsequently adopted its strongest recommendations on the LRA, including the establishment of a Regional Task Force and a joint operations centre.

In 2012, Crisis Action brought local activists from areas currently subject to LRA atrocities to brief the UN Security Council, the US Congress, and EU policy makers. Following the activists’ briefing, the UN Security Council was presented with and endorsed the first ever UN Strategy on the LRA – realising a long-standing campaign objective of Crisis Action’s partners. Crisis Action continues to mobilise partners to ensure that hard-won international initiatives on the LRA are fully implemented and civilians protected from LRA attacks.

“Crisis Action’s work on Iran has been professional, responsible and politically astute. By illustrating that military action would be disastrous, and that there was scope for negotiation, Crisis Action helped change the public debate. Crisis Action is a rare beast; able to harness the expertise and influence of practitioners, analysts and civil society groups to engage both in writing and face-to-face with the realities of politics and to make an impact.” Sir Richard Dalton, former UK Ambassador to Iran

In 2007, fears of a US or Israeli-led military attack against Iran intensified. Crisis Action launched a collective campaign to close off the political space needed for the UK government to support military strikes.

Crisis Action built a diverse campaign coalition– including NGOs, Unions, faith and student groups – to build up public pressure against military action.  This centred on a series of joint NGO reports, including ‘Time to Talk’, a report that provided a systematic analysis of the possible consequences of military action and pushed for direct diplomatic engagement between US and Iran. The report was translated into Hebrew, Farsi and Arabic and was used as the focus of a global media campaign, fronted by Sir Richard Dalton, former UK Ambassador to Iran. Former UN Weapons Inspectors, senior faith leaders and retired US generals also backed the campaign. The UK Prime Minster Tony Blair responded to public pressure by stating that, “I can’t think it would be right to take military action against Iran.”

“By fusing authoritative analysis with joint advocacy, Crisis Action’s work on Iran has gone far beyond the usual boundaries of NGO campaigns. Crisis Action has succeeded in bringing together a diverse group of organisations – from campaign groups to foreign policy analysts – to work strategically on one of the most challenging international issues of the day.” Robert Lowe, Middle East Programme Manager, Chatham House

Crisis Action’s first campaign was launched in 2005 to convince the British government to launch a comprehensive, independent inquiry into Iraqi civilian casualties since the 2003 invasion. Crisis Action secured the support of celebrities, army generals, leading health experts and senior politicians to back the campaign and demonstrated through public opinion polls that 59% of the public were in favour of an inquiry.

“As the international community focused on events in the Arab world, Crisis Action played a vital role in driving policymakers’ attention to the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Ivory Coast and helped us to ensure that measures were taken to protect vulnerable civilians. Crisis Action’s support was crucial to enable us to deliver targeted, high-quality lobbying and media work in such a short and troubled period of time.” François Danel, Executive Director, Action Against Hunger

In the wake of the contested Presidential election in Ivory Coast in November 2010, the stand-off between President Alassane Ouattara and former President Laurent Gbagbo and their respective forces intensified, eventually exploding into fierce clashes, summary executions and deliberate attacks against civilians. More than one million people were displaced from their homes and around 135,000 were forced to flee, seeking refuge in Liberia.

Crisis Action formed a coalition of international and West African civil society organisations to urge local leaders and the international community to call for calm. We facilitated a briefing for international media with NGOs on the ground. At a time when travel inside Ivory Coast was prohibited, this provided journalists with vital insights into the evolving situation, generating important international media coverage of the situation. Crisis Action also organised meetings for partners with members of the UN Security Council to feed into their deliberations on a possible resolution.

In January 2011, the Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the violence and allowing a 2,000-strong troop reinforcement of the UN peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast (UNOCI). This was followed by the authorisation of measures to increase civilian protection and enforced targeted sanctions against Gbagbo and his close associates, as Crisis Action’s partners had urged.

“Being a Crisis Action partner directly boosts the scope and effectiveness of our advocacy to protect civilians caught in conflicts where we work. When a crisis threatens or strikes they are always on the front foot: bringing partners and experts together to discuss a joint strategy and coordinating engagement with high-level policymakers to ensure a rapid but effective response.” Mervyn Lee, Executive Director, Mercy Corps

In June 2009 the Pakistani government launched a military offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Around two million civilians were displaced as the UN warned that the human exodus was the world’s worst displacement crisis since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Crisis Action worked to ensure that the humanitarian impact and long-term consequences of these military operations were fully considered in international political decision-making. This included coordinated lobby meetings with the UK government that resulted in the UK making representations to the Pakistani government and military on the humanitarian impact of the operations.

This included coordinated lobby meetings with the UK government that resulted in UK representations to the Pakistani government and military on the humanitarian impact of the operations.

Ahead of the first EU-Pakistan summit in Brussels in 2009, Crisis Action organised joint advocacy meetings, including one with the Pakistani Interior Minister. At the summit the EU offered an extra aid package of €124 million to support displaced Pakistani civilians and fund post-conflict rehabilitation.

Violent clashes broke out on 11 June 2010 between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that 400,000 people were displaced by the violence, with around 100,000 of those fleeing across the border to Uzbekistan.

Crisis Action worked with partners to produce a humanitarian briefing paper that outlined the dynamics of the conflict and its impact on the civilian population to help officials assess and improve their response. We also worked with Archbishop Desmond Tutu to place an op-ed article providing recommendations on how the international community could help stem the violence.

Between February and May 2009, the final months of the Sri Lankan government’s military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Crisis Action worked with partners to address the humanitarian tragedy in the Vanni area of Sri Lanka. Thousands of civilians were hemmed into this thin strip of land and over 6500 killed as the government battled Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland.

Our New York office organised meetings for partners with officials for them to put forward specific steps for a fair and sustainable resolution of the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. This was followed by a press conference at UN headquarters, where NGOs presented rare, fresh information from the conflict zone in Sri Lanka. Crisis Action also coordinated a series of meetings for the NGO delegation with EU institutions and member state representatives. Following these meetings, the EU suspended part of its trade preferences for Sri Lanka under the framework of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP +).

In August 2008, Russia launched a large-scale military operation across the Georgian border, occupying South Ossetia and resulting in a conflict that led to the death of hundreds of civilians and grave human rights abuses by both sides.

Crisis Action helped partners to exchange information and put forward joint policy recommendations on this rapidly changing situation where lack of access to the Russian-controlled territory was a serious concern for humanitarian agencies. Crisis Action also liaised between partners and relevant officials at the European Commission and the UN representatives in Georgia to ensure a clear channel of communication with key humanitarian donors.

Throughout 2007, the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe became increasingly grave following poor rainfall and drought. Meanwhile the human rights situation deteriorated as public protest against President Mugabe and the ruling party ZANU-PF increased. In 2007, Crisis Action worked to promote awareness of this crisis, organising a partnership of writers from Africa and Europe – including Václav Havel, Wole Soyinka and Günter Grass – to write to world leaders expressing anger at their ‘political cowardice’ towards the country.

Following the contested 2008 parliamentary and presidential elections, in which Mugabe and the ZANU-PF failed to win for the first time since independence in 1980, a campaign of violence was orchestrated against the opposition and independent public.

Crisis Action helped co-ordinate a global civil society response in solidarity with Zimbabwean NGOs, speaking out against the escalation of violence. The campaign supported trade union efforts to stop a delivery of 77 tons of weapons to Zimbabwe by the Chinese vessel An Yue Jiang. It also included a joint public campaign against the German company, Giesecke & Devrient, responsible for supplying the Zimbabwean central bank with banknote paper. Giesecke & Devrient bowed to the pressure and announced that it was immediately stopping delivery of banknote paper to Zimbabwe. Crisis Action was informed that, as a direct result, the Zimbabwean Government had to stop paying some of its security forces leading to the closure of several security camps where torture of civilians was reportedly occurring.

“Crisis Action really adds value to Muslim Aid work by enabling us to understand the views of other agencies working in areas of conflict such as Somalia and Darfur. Our approach to conflicts may not always be the same but we can certainly be a stronger voice for peace if better informed.” Saif Ahmad, Chief Executive Officer, Muslim Aid

Following a serious escalation in violence in Somalia in 2007, Crisis Action responded to partners’ concerns by coordinating intensive high-level advocacy for a limited period of time. In March 2007 African Union peacekeepers landed at Mogadishu amid pitched battles between insurgents and government forces backed by Ethiopian troops. The Red Cross described it as the worst fighting in 15 years. In one month, the humanitarian crisis had grown with the UN reporting that more than 320,000 Somalis have fled fighting in Mogadishu.

Crisis Action brought together a broad coalition of UK NGOs to share information and develop recommendations for policymakers. This period of concerted effort behind the scenes led to a series of important commitments by the British Government with regard to both key humanitarian and human rights concerns and contributed to securing greater consideration of Somalia at the UN Security Council.

“Crisis Action proved to be a formidable force in responding to the upsurge in violence in Eastern Congo. Their ability to bring together powerful individuals and organisations within civil society to lobby and campaign internationally cuts straight through to decision-makers. Crisis Action helped ensure that the protection of civilians in DRC was central to the political agenda. And the efforts of their team, supporting their many partners, directly contributed to mobilising international efforts to contain the crisis”. – Alan Doss, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Crisis Action worked on the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2008 to 2012. Throughout those years Crisis Action built strong coalitions of Congolese and international organisations to push the Security Council to give its peacekeeping forces (MONUC/MONUSCO) strong mandates to protect civilians. This succeeded in obtaining a strong role for MONUSCO in monitoring election-related abuses and a bolstered their responsibility to protect civilians from the LRA.

Crisis Action also supported partners to successfully demand accountability for sexual violence. In August 2010, in response to the mass rape of more than 300 women and children in Walikale, Crisis Action drew together high-profile NGOs to urge the UN Security Council to authorise an urgent public investigation into the incident. Within three weeks the Security Council authorised an investigation and made the findings public. As a result a key commander was prosecuted for ordering the rape, while others had sanctions imposed on them.

In 2011, work focused on minimising election-related violence from Congo’s national elections and putting reform of Congo’s military at the top of the political agenda after elections. We worked with human rights groups to successfully urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue a public statement warning that perpetrators of electoral violence would be held to account. Collective advocacy and media work facilitated by Crisis Action played a key role in spurring Congolese and international parties to take urgent action to avert electoral violence. Although fraud and irregularities were widespread, many of the preventative measures called for by the Crisis Action-led coalition were implemented, limiting violent repercussions.

“From DRC to Israel/Palestine, Crisis Action’s coordination, intelligence sharing and engagement have visibly raised the game for civil society’s work on armed conflicts”. Pol Degreve, Director, Broederlijk Delen, Belgium