The CEWARN Committee of Permanent Secretaries (CPS) meeting comprising deputy-foreign ministers of IGAD member states was held on 26 April 2018 in Djibouti. The CPS is CEWARN’s highest policy organ that convenes annually to appraise the mechanism’s work and provide strategic direction.

The CPS meeting received a progress report on the implementation of the CEWARN 2012-2019 Strategy framework that guides the mechanism’s conflict early warning and response operations along five broad thematic sectors of peace and security, namely, Social, Economic, Environment, Economy, Governance and Security.

The progress report specifically focused on lessons learnt from the pilot application of the recently developed conflict early warning data collection and related technological tools as well as early warning indicators – in Somalia, Sudan and Uganda throughout 2017.

The CPS adopted a 16-point decision proposed by the experts with a main focus on the full roll out of CEWARN’s integrated data collection and analysis system to all member states – building on the successes of the pilot period.

Other key issues covered by the decisions of the CPS include: strengthening national CEWERUs, resource mobilization and sustainability of the CEWARN mechanism as well as on building a robust network-based civil society participation in CEWARN’s operations in all Member States.

The decisions were informed by deliberations of a two-day meeting of IGAD Member State experts that convened on 24-25 April 2018 in the same venue. The experts meeting comprised national Conflict Early Warning and Response Units (CEWERUs) and CSO representatives from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda.

Please refer to the full version of the decisions of the 13th CEWARN Committee of Permanent Secretaries (CPS) meeting held on 26 April 2018 in Djibouti.