As part of their peacebuilding efforts, International Alert created and manages three major programs: 1) Conflict Alert, 2) Critical Events Monitoring System (CEMS), and 3) Resource Use Management Planning (RUMP):
- Conflict Alert
International Alert Philippines manages Conflict Alert, a conflict monitoring system that covers the five Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi.
Conflict Alert is their flagship program and the only one of its kind in the Philippines. They gather all the police and media reports and validate them in the communities.
From these reports, they log incidents of violent conflict and their causes, actors, human costs, and manifestations.
2. Critical Events Monitoring System (CEMS).
Conflict Alert has evolved into other important programs. Alert has a Critical Events Monitoring System (CEMS), a real time gathering of data through SMS and high frequency radio. Data harvesters send reports of violence and tensions through mobile phones and VHF radios to the Early Response Network (ERN), which consists of people in various locations in the Bangsamoro. This allows them to respond to tensions and violent conflict efficiently and appropriately. Alert uses data and analysis from Conflict Alert and CEMS in collaborating with local governments, key agencies, the security sector, and religious and traditional leaders to come up with nuanced and context-specific solutions to conflict.
3. Resource Use Management Planning (RUMP) program
The RUMP program involves people using GIS technology to plot the location of existing resources and conflict dynamics in a given area. This helps them plan how they want their resources to be used.
The main purpose is to craft the Peoples’ Resource Use Agenda which gets presented to the local government so that plans for investment and development are conflict sensitive. It is crucial that development initiatives do not exacerbate existing conflict in the area and that these will not lead to new conflicts.