On 31 October 2015, CEWARN Director Mr. Richard Barno signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Director of the Nairobi-based Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations (HIPSIR) Dr Elias Omondi Opongo

The MOU covers broad areas of engagement in capacity building and promoting peace and security in the IGAD region by the two institutions, including co-convening training in conflict early warning and response to regional professionals and conducting research and analysis with the aim of informing policy-makers for effective responses to threats of violent conflict.

In addition, the two institutions intend to co-convene regional platforms on topics of significance to regional peace and security as well as produce joint publications and policy briefs.

On 23 October 2015, an Austrian delegation comprising Members of the Austrian Parliament led by Ms. Petra Bayr who is Chairperson of the Sub-Committee on Development Policy; Officials of Austria Development Agency (ADA); a representative of the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Integration and Europe as well as Austrian journalists visited the CEWARN Secretariat and received briefing on its work.

CEWARN Director Mr. Richard Barno and staff members presented an overview of CEWARN’s early warning and response operations across the region and particularly the work of the Rapid Response Fund (RRF) which receives strong support from the Government of Austria.

The CEWARN RRF was set up in 2009 as a multi-donor basket fund to support locally-driven crisis response projects that contain the spread and escalation of violent conflicts across the IGAD region. Projects supported by the RRF range from short-term peace dialogues to modest development projects that provide peace dividends to communities affected by conflict.

In line, with CEWARN’s strategic aim of promoting proactive response to violent conflicts in the region, these projects are also intended to catalyze long-term structural and policy response to conflicts. The Government of of Austria has been CEWARN’s strong partner on the RRF and has thus far made direct financial contributions that amount to over USD 900,000.

Furthermore, In July 2015 the IGAD Executive Secretary Amb. Mahboub Maalim and. Ambassador Peter Launsky, Director General for Development Cooperation in the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which makes Austria a lead development partner for the RRF.

CEWARN Director Mr. Richard Barno visited Ushahidi Headquarters, a non-profit software company that develops free and open-source software (LGPL) for information collection, visualization, and interactive mapping on 10 July 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya and received briefing on the operations.

Ushahidi (Swahili for ‘testimony’) was created in the aftermath of Kenya’s disputed 2007 presidential election to collect eyewitness reports of violence reported by email and text message. Ushahidi later presented the information on interactive maps. The Ushahidi website uses the crowd sourcing for social activism and public accountability and offers products that enable local observers to submit reports using their mobile phones or the internet, while simultaneously creating a temporal and geospatial archive of events.

Deliberations between Mr. Barno and Ushahidi representatives focused on how CEWARN can adopt tools used by Ushahidi to tap into data available from social media for conflict early warning.

CEWARN‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ Director Mr. Richard Barno presented a pilot policy initiative that is being undertaken in collaboration with the Life and Peace Institute (LPI); Organization of Social Science Research for East and Southern Africa (OSSREA) and InterAfrica Group (IAG) at the IGAD Partners Workshop on Borderlands Development held on 9 July in Nairobi.

The pilot policy initiative was initiated in 2014 with the aim of supporting and enriching regional policy processes towards promoting regional peace and security in IGAD. The current focus of the pilot initiative is specifically on addressing the nexus between informal cross-border trade and cross-border security governance in the IGAD region – and seeks to explore the relationship between the two variables and identify discernible policy gaps with a view of supporting policy response through engagement with regional policy makers.

Mr. Barno shared lessons from CEWARN’s decade long operations in cross-border areas in the IGAD region that inform the pilot initiative. He further paid tribute to the LPI for initiating the project and stated that the pilot initiative pioneers new approaches to collaborative and participatory policy analysis and development.

Representatives of IGAD’s CEWARN, Economic Community of West African State’s Early Warning and Response Network (ECOWARN‬‬‬) and the New York-based Global Center on Cooperative Security held a two day meeting from July 29-30 2015, at the CEWARN Offices on how to effectively undertake early warning and design effective response measures to address the threat of violent extremism and terrorism.

The meeting is informed by current pressing security concerns in the IGAD and ECOWAS regions related to violent extremism and terrorism. The delegates discussed their respective regional experiences and the main features of the threat as experienced by the two regions.

The meeting also looked at existing operational capacities of IGAD and ECOWAS on early warning data collection and analysis. The team of analysts also brainstormed and identified key indicators on violent extremism and terrorism, and deliberated further on how they can be refined and incorporated into the existing early warning indicators.

CEWARN Director Mr. Richard Barno received Finland’s Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa Mr. Pekka Haavisto and Deputy of Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Finland Mr. Jukka Pajarinen at the CEWARN office in Addis Ababa on 18 September 2015, and briefed them on CEWARN’s operations.

Mr. Barno’s briefing covered an overview of key peac e and security developments in IGAD region and an update on CEWARN’s current operations with particular focus on steps being taken to fully roll out the mechanism’s expanded mandate of addressing a broad range of security threats in the region.

Mr. Barno described the mechanism’s operations that engage a broad range of governmental and civil society constituencies from local to regional level in data collection, analysis, dissemination, decision-making and response.

He also indicated that CEWARN is in the process of adopting additional tools and methodologies including taking advantage of SMS-based crowd sourcing, social media monitoring and inclusion of structural data to deepen analysis.

The IGAD Executive Secretary Amb(Eng.) Mahboub Maalim extended a message of deep condolences on the untimely passing of Mr. Samuel K. Maina who was Head of the National Steering Committee on Peace Building and Conflict Management (NSC) and Head of CEWARN’s national Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit (CEWERU) in Kenya.

The Message conveyed to the family, friends and colleagues of Mr. Maina reads:

On behalf of the IGAD family and my own behalf I want to express my deepest condolences to you on the passing of Mr. Samuel K Maina. Mr. Maina was a valued colleague and partner to IGAD and we are profoundly shocked and saddened by the news of his untimely passing.

Mr. Maina has been amongst the longest standing members of IGAD’s national partner offices in Kenya through IGAD’s Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN). Mr. Maina was a charismatic leader; always a warm and hospitable host to the IGAD family as well as a personal colleague and friend to many.

He has led the National Steering Committee (NSC) and CEWARN’s national Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit (CEWERU) from its formative years to the robust and highly efficient organisation that it is today. , He leaves behind a very strong legacy.So, when we think of him we celebrate the life of a hero who dedicated his life to peacebuilding.

I have had a personal privilege of knowing and working with him for over twenty years and can say that we will continue to feel this loss for a long time to come. I pray that God comforts you and the entire family at this difficult time.

Sincerely,

Mahboub Maalim (Amb.)

Executive Secretary of IGAD

CEWARN is seeking the serves of a competent consultant/ company for arcGIS online Application development and customization.

The deadline for application is 18 August 2015.

Please see TOR attached for further details.

IGAD’s CEWARN and the Global Peace Foundation (GPF) convened a business leaders roundtable on ‘Addressing the nexus business and peace’ in collaboration with the Government of Zanzibar, the East African Community (EAC) and Common Market for Easter and Southern Africa (COMESA) on 22 July 2015 in Zanzibar.

The seminar formed part of the agenda of the GPF’s Annual Global Leadership Conference 2015 with the theme ‘Promoting Peace security and Sustainable Development in East Africa: A Call for Moral and Innovative Leadership.’ The Business leaders roundtable seminar brought together senior representatives of IGAD, EAC, COMESA, the African Union, political analysts and business leaders was presided over by the Secretary General of EAC Ambassador Richard Sizebera.

 Ambassador Sizebera stated that there is sufficient data from the region that illustrates conclusively the nexus between peace, business and development and cited statistics on the economic cost of the recent crisis in Burundi as well as the toll the threat of terrorism is having on the tourism industry in Kenya.

The seminar comprised a series of expert presentations that made a strong case for a more proactive and direct support from the private sector in conflict mitigation in the East and Horn of Africa region due to the strong mutually reinforcing relationship between of thriving businesses and peace.

Read the press release and outcome document attached for further details.

The IGAD communications team convened to review the IGAD Corporate Communications Strategy and to develop action plans with the aim of making IGAD Communications more effective and enhancing IGAD’s visibility on 8-11 June 2015 in Nanyuki, Kenya.

The meeting brought together communications team members from the IGAD Secretariat in Djibouti and specialized offices including CEWARN; IGAD Centre for Pastoral Areas and Livestock Development (ICPALD); IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Center (ICPAC); IGAD Security Sector Programme (ISSP) as well as the Office of the IGAD Special Envoys for South Sudan (OSSES).

The team appraised the IGAD corporate communication strategy and identified areas for improvement. The team also appraised a guideline developed to ensure a standardized usage of IGAD’s visual identity across the institution’s units.

Furthermore, the team identified and devised plans around upcoming opportunities for publicity such as IGAD’s 30th anniversary in January 2016. Other key themes of discussion were on how to devise innovative ways of attracting sufficient funds for communications activities; effective utilization of technology for internal and external communications as well the need to undertake regular audience surveys to obtain feedback from external stakeholders.