The National Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit (CEWERU) of South Sudan held a launch event of CEWARN’s Rapid Response Fund (RRF) in Torit, Eastern Equatoria State on 24-26 May, 2021.

The aim of the event was to sensitize national and sub-national peace structures in South Sudan on CEWARN’s Rapid Response Fund (RRF) facility that supports Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution (CPMR) efforts in Member States.

Those in attendance included County Commissioners, members of the national CEWERU Steering Committee; representatives of CSOs, women groups and faith-base organisations as well as State officials and Local Media groups. The event was presided over by Hon. Marko Lokidor, the Eastern Equatoria State Minister of Peace Building.

CEWARN convened a revitalization workshop of the national Conflict Early Warning and Response Unit (CEWERU) of Ethiopia on 10-12 May in Bahr Dar town of Ethiopia. The workshop brought together officials from the Amhara, Somali, Gambella, Harar, Southern Nations and Beninshanghul Gumuz regional states as well as representatives of civil society organisations and the academia.

The main objective of the workshop was to reconstitute the steering committee of Ethiopia’s national CEWERU and expand its membership to embrace a wider network of national institutions that have a peace, security and development mandate relevant to CEWARN’s early warning and response operations. CEWARN’s operations currently cover human security concerns across economy, social affairs, environment, governance and security sectors.

CEWARN’s Committee of Permanent Secretaries (CPS) convened on 28 April 2021 at the Imperial Botanical Beach Hotel in Entebbe to deliberate on strengthening regional cooperation in conflict prevention in the IGAD region.

The committee that convenes bi-annually comprises Permanent Secretaries of Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. The Minister of Interior of the Republic of Uganda Hon. Gen. Jeje Odongo and the IGAD Executive Secretary Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu officiated the meeting. 

CEWARN launched a book titled ‘Conflict early warning in the horn: CEWARN’s Journey’ that contains an eclectic collection of perspectives on the inception and evolution of the CEWARN conflict early warning mechanism over two-decades since its inception in 2000. 

The book launch was held at the 16th Meeting of the CEWARN Committee of Permanent Secretaries (CPS) on 28 April 2021 in Entebbe, Uganda. Those in attendance included the Minister of Interior of the Republic of Uganda Hon. Gen. Jeje Odongo; the IGAD Executive Secretary Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu; Permanent Secretaries of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of IGAD Member States as well as heads of national Conflict Early Warning and Response Units (CEWERUs). 

CEWARN convened a validation workshop to review a regional Conflict Early Warning Report on13-15 April in Bishoftu, Ethiopia.

The report captures emerging peace and security issues and trends across the IGAD region that is intended to inform national and regional level conflict prevention interventions. The report was developed based on the outcomes of national conflict profiling exercises conducted in Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

CEWARN facilitated a conflict profiling and scenario building exercise on 4-8 April 2021, in River Nile State, Sudan. The meeting brought together twenty participants from academia, national and sub-national experts in governance, security, social affairs, environment and economy as well as National CEWERU who actively contributed. Key issues that were raised as potential generators of conflicts across the country included: the absence of permanent constitution, unequitable distribution of resources, elections related conflict, land ownership, and youth unemployment.

CEWARN launches an expanded Rapid Response Fund (RRF) for use by national and community-based institutions in IGAD Member States to facilitate timely response to mitigate crises. RRF funds operate on a project basis with elaborate management procedures.

On 2-4 March, CEWARN held a sensitization workshop on new standard operating procedures of the Rapid Response Fund (RRF) for heads of its national Early Warning ‪ and Response Units (CEWERUs) and Financial Administration Units (FAUs) of member states, which were constituted to manage the facility.

Projects eligible to receive CEWARN RRF grants are typically short-term emergency ‪peace building interventions with a maximum value of Euro 50,000. National units who oversee project implementation appraise RRF projects initiated by local peace structures. The RRF avails 3 million Euros for a period of two years.

On 5 March 2021, the National Steering Committee’s Secretary of Peacebuilding and Disaster Response Mr. Peter Thuku and CEWARN Director Mr. Camlus Omogo convened a national launch event of CEWARN Rapid Response Fund for Kenya in Naivasha.

In attendance were Kenyan government and non-government institutions engaged in peace building such as members of the national conflict early warning and response unit’s steering committee, county commissioners, representatives of local peace committees and civil society organizations.

RRF funds were obtained from the Austria Development Agency (ADA), the governments of Netherlands, and Sweden as well as the European Union through the IGAD Promoting Peace and Stability in the Horn of Africa Region (IPPSHAR) program.

Refer to Press release for further information.

2020 was a challenging year. From an operations point of view, disruption of normal day-to-day operations due to the COVID19 pandemic demanded measures to adapt to new ways of doing things – including shifting to virtual platforms for collaboration.

CEWARN stayed the course in monitoring developments in the region and in sharing early warning analysis with decision-makers both in IGAD and in the Member States. CEWARN conveys its gratitude to its national, regional and international partners for the strong support that made it possible. Special thanks are in order to the European Union that provided financial support to CEWARN activities.

Below are some highlights of activities completed in 2020:

• Outreach strategy completed: the outreach strategy is aimed at supporting the expansion of CEWARN’s stakeholder-base & strengthening engagement with decision makers.
• € 3 million availed for conflict prevention initiatives: Through the Rapid Response Fund, CEWARN mobilized three million Euros ready for use by member states for early response initiatives for a period of two years. Funds were obtained from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the governments of Netherlands and Sweden as well as the European Union through
• Assessment on efficacy of CEWARN early warning methodology completed and output shared : CEWARN commissioned a retroactive review of the efficacy of its CEWARN’s situation reports in predicting incidents that were recorded from 2003-2015. The assessment yielded evidence in support of the CEWARN Risk model’s predictive ability  while identifying areas for improvement. Areas for improvement include gaps in infrastructure and human resource capacity at the national level as well as consistency in field reporting.
• Conflict Profiling for Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan : CEWARN facilitated national conflict profiling and scenario building exercises for Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan. The exercises brought together thematic experts in governance, Security, economy, social affairs and environment sectors that reflect the broad areas of focus of CEWARN’s conflict early warning work. The aim of these exercises is to identify emerging risks of violent conflict with a view to inform CEWARN’s early warning and response work.
• GIS platform launched: CEWARN’s GIS Unit launched a platform that regularly avails maps that provide spatial analysis of conflicts in the region containing physical and human factors of conflicts – where applicable. CEWARN uses open source data from its incident reporter database and its situation room reports as well as other available data sources.
• National experts refine CEWARN conflict early warning indicators : CEWARN convened sector experts from Member States to review and refine its conflict early warning indicators that are used to compile incident and situation reports along CEWARN’s five sectors of focus, namely: Security, Governance, Social Affairs, Economy and Environment. The delegates also provided their inputs on customization of current analytic products to better suit the needs of their respective institutions. 

For further details , please refer to the attached newsletter, CEWARN Reflections 2020.

CEWARN convened an annual review meeting of its conflict early warning indicators from 24-26 November in Naivasha, Kenya.

CEWARN broke norm this year by inviting representatives of line ministries from the seven IGAD member states: Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda that reflect is five sectors of Focus. In preceding years, the exercise involved representatives of CEWARN’s national research institutes with relevant expertise.

Since 2012, CEWARN’s conflict early warning and response operations are organized around five sectors, namely: security, governance, social affairs, economy and environment. The multi-sectoral focus that cumulatively covers all scopes of human activity enables robust conflict prevention and peace building interventions to human security challenges in the IGAD region. CEWARN’s early warning operations are also guided by a set of indicators across its five sectors of focus that were methodically developed to monitor and analyze regional developments.

Given that CEWARN’s current strategic focus is engaging with high level decision making in IGAD Member States, engagement with relevant line-ministries is a step forward in this direction. This move is aimed at complementing CEWARN’s routine short-term or crisis management focus with longer-term structural prevention support to Member States.

Accordingly, the review meeting entailed: a presentation on CEWARN’s operations with a focus on its early warning methodology and tools as well as presentation on CEWARN’s analytic reports/ products. Subsequently, delegates worked along sectoral groups to examine CEWARN’s early warning indicators and proposed improvements. The delegates also provided their inputs on customization of current analytic products to better suit the needs of their respective institutions. #

CEWARN facilitated a national conflict profiling exercise for Kenya on 9-14 November 2020 in Naivasha, Kenya. The exercise covered six cross border counties in Kenya, namely: Marsabit, Madera, Wajir, Garissa, Turkana and West Pokot.

It also drew together about thirty participants including County Commissioners as well as representatives of county government and civil society organizations. The aim of the exercise was to identify emerging risks of violent conflict in these counties with a view to inform CEWARN’s early warning and response work in Kenya.

The national conflict profiling exercise identified key developments and trends-to-watch as threats to human security as well as short, medium and long-term scenarios with corresponding recommendations.

The discussions were guided by a focus on human security and discussions around governance, Security, economy, social affairs and environment sectors that reflect the scope of CEWARN’s conflict early warning work.

Issues that were raised pertaining to peace and security across the six counties included: rivalry over political/ elective offices and negative ethnicity; internal and cross-border boundary disputes; resource based conflicts (including among mobile pastoralists involving Cattle rustling), highway banditry, violent extremism (including threat of homegrown radicalization); small arms proliferation; disputes related to oil/gas exploration and disputes related to displacement of communities for development as well as gender based violence( including early marriages and FGM.)

It was also noted that contestations for political offices during the 2022 general elections are likely to be accompanied by risks of insecurity.