Early Warning

FEWER Africa’s approach to institutional capacity building is based on experience of working with local civil society and community based organisations in West and Central Africa. Experience has taught that programming outcomes are only achieved where the institution is in place to back up the individuals responsible for analysis, and that programming outcomes are only sustainable beyond the lifespan of the project where the structures and mechanisms of the organisation itself have been developed. In order to be legitimate, we must reinforce the capacity of these organisations to deliver and be credible vis-à-vis donors and individuals.

Capacity building of institutions is a participatory process. In concrete terms, it involves sitting down with organisation staff and working on the issues they have identified. The most frequent training programs are:

Communication reflex

Institutional & decision-making processes

Fund-raising

Strategic Planning

Trainings are tailored to match an organization’s specific needs, although it has been useful to draw on “tools” from within the region as a framework for training.

Conflict analysis methodology training

An understanding of conflict as well as peace generating factors is critical for early warning analysis. Further, it is now clear that a factual approach to early warning is flawed. Different indicators could be interpreted in a number of ways by people in conflict affected areas. Perceptions, therefore, are as important as facts. The analytical assumption is that: (a) conflict trends - (b) peace trends +/- (c) stakeholder trends = overall trends. On this basis, responses to conflict and peace developments, as well as stakeholder actions can be defined. Therefore capacity building focuses on understanding root causes, proximate causes, and triggers of conflict, peace indicators, and stakeholder analysis of interests, agendas, and capacities.

The methodology used has emerged from a series of expert consultations on conflict analysis convened with representatives from the Caucasus and the Horn/Great Lakes of Africa. It has been further elaborated by the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANEP/Ghana) and the Centre for Conflict Research (CCR/Kenya) as part of a UNDESA programme on capacity building for conflict management.

FEWER Africa members will continue to re-assess and draw lessons from their practice of early warning. Hence, the methodology and its application should be viewed as a dynamic product. It will be revised and changed as we continue to learn how to engage in early warning more effectively.

Conflict Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting

Systematic local monitoring and analysis of conflicts provides the evidence-base that informs responses to conflict and gives civil society groups an opportunity to feed into decision-making processes. Where this analysis seeks to predict future scenarios, it also gives time for preventive action to be taken.

On-going monitoring and analysis of conflict dynamics by local network analysts is oriented towards the production of three types of reports: (a) annual 'baseline' situation and risk assessments (25-30 pages); (b) regular early warning reports (10-15 pages); and (c) policy briefs (4-6 pages). The current early warning reporting system is further improved through methodological input from the project partners and other FEWER Africa members.

Policy Response and Strategic Development

Local conflict and peace analyses need to be linked to response strategies. Effective preventive action requires an integrated and concerted approach. Emphasis is therefore placed on promoting dialogue and co-operation between civil society groups and state/non-state actors to co-ordinate responses to conflict.

An effective methodology for planning and implementing integrated responses to local conflict situations requires: (a) on-going political monitoring and surveying of peace-building activities (b) multi-actor strategic planning exercises; and (c) on-going policy outreach and policy briefing meetings with policy-makers and other stakeholders.

Political Monitoring and Surveying of Peace-building Activities

On-going political monitoring provides a thorough understanding of key decision-makers and their institutions. Whereas previously we surveyed key actors in a “snap-shot” study, emphasis is now placed on ensuring that the dynamic nature of key regional and international decision-making bodies is understood. Research into country peace-building activities yield in-country conflict prevention survey reports (20-30 pages) that catalogue “who is doing what” and assess the strengths/weaknesses of preventative instruments and peace-building efforts in different conflict contexts. The methodology employed includes a broad assessment of activities, interviews, project visits and write up of the study. This process bolsters co-ordination and feeds into strategic roundtable exercises, policy outreach and awareness raising efforts (see below).

Strategic Roundtables

Strategic roundtables are an effective tool for responding to early warning and strengthening overall conflict response efforts through facilitated dialogue. Key representatives of government, inter-governmental organisations, NGOs, and non-state actors are invited to a facilitated planning process, where the early warning reports are discussed and peace-building plans elaborated to address the agendas and needs of different actors. Either windows of opportunity for peace-building or urgent early warnings that require contingency planning determine the focus of the planning processes.

Policy Outreach and Briefings

The strategic roundtable process is complemented by an implementation support mechanism that has the following components:

Monitoring the implementation of the strategic plans.

Establishment of online workspaces.

A support and advisory function for policy makers, NGOs and donors to assist in tackling specific problems, (e.g. security issues, awareness-raising needs).

Policy outreach involves the development of mutually beneficial relationships with identified decision-makers that can impact on regional conflict and peace dynamics. It ensures the transfer of early warning information, support/ advice in the implementation of strategic plans, and consultations with those groups who cannot participate in formal briefings/roundtables (e.g. insurgent groups). This takes the form of, for example, informal meetings, policy briefing meetings, medium to high level engagement with key actors, policy-makers, and donors in Europe and North America, and other networking activities.

Workshops/trainings

Workshops serve to identify weaknesses and challenges in early warning and early response monitoring. Workshops are ‘tailor-made’ for participating network members in order to respond to needs identified by and in association with them. Workshops also offer a forum for dialogue and the exchange of ideas and best practice, as well as a medium through which to elaborate future training needs, goals and network activities.

Expertise Exchange Programme

FEWER-Africa works with an expertise pool that feeds into the problem solving efforts of regional early warning networks. Emphasis is placed on sharing expertise with partners and the broader peace-building community.

Currently, expertise on key conflict issues is either not oriented towards concrete field applications or dispersed. Given the complexity of issues faced by peace-building practitioners (e.g. the political economy of the war in the DRC as a key obstacle to peace), it is important to make sure that expertise is fed into problem solving/strategy development exercises. Furthermore, although there are many research initiatives on conflict, there is often limited synergy among them. Linking research within and beyond the network, and research to practitioners, helps further learning and advances in different fields.

Click below to see a report on DRC member AIP to _{Contribution from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Roundtable on Ways to Peace in Chechnya: Good Practice in Peace Accords and Settlement Processes (108kb)}