A good place to start exploring the links between aid and politics is the Overseas Development Institute's Humanitarian Policy Group www.odi.org.uk/hpg/ with its impressive number of papers and evaluation reports.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs provides two frequently updated sources of information for the international humanitarian community: ReliefWeb www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf and the Integrated Regional Information Network's www.irinnews.org.

Tufts University's Humanitarianism and War Project www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hw has analyses of international responses to a number of complex post-Cold War emergencies. Research reports and publications are also provided by the International Relations and Security Network www.isn.ethz.ch.

The European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation www.euconflict.org/euconflict is a network of NGOs involved in the prevention and / or resolution of violent conflicts. Kofi Annan has described its directory as 'an accurate reference tool for practitioners of conflict prevention and management'. The University of Ulster's INCORE programme www.incore.ulst.ac.uk has profiles of conflict-affected states and thematic guides to Internet resources around issues of conflict and ethnicity. The Conflict, Development and Peace (CODEP) network www.codep.org.uk challenges mainstream thinking on international responses to conflict .

Though the UN-sponsored War Torn Societies Project has been wound up, a database can still be found at www.unrisd.org/wsp/index.htm.

International Alert www.international-alert.org seeks to address the root causes of violence and is host to www.womenbuildingpeace.org. Scope for 'Track Three' diplomacy by non-state actors and the business community is examined in the inter-group dialogues and conflict resolution training programmes of the Institute for Multitrack Diplomacy www.imtd.org.

Among attempts to regulate humanitarian action in conflict zones are those of the Sphere Project www.sphereproject.org, the French Groupe URD (Urgence, Rehabilitation, Developpement) www.urd.org, and two Humanitarian Accountability Projects at www.oneworld.org/ombudsman and www.hapgeneva.org. The Code of Conduct for The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is at www.ifrc.org/publicat/conduct.

Finally, for an extensive set of links to information on conflict-torn countries, check out Forced Migration Review's links at www.fmreview.org/3linksDisplace.htm