CEWARN Director Mr. Camlus Omogo and team held a meeting with the Federal Republic of Somalia Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Mr. Ali Mohamed Ali, on 21 March 2017 and updated him on the implementation of CEWARN Strategy including the status of the new data collection and analysis system specifically on the progress with piloting the system in Somalia. Somalia is one of the three IGAD Member States piloting the new system.

The other two piloting Member States are Sudan and Uganda. This meeting was part of CEWARN initiative to reaffirm as well as enhance the political commitments and actions of Member States that was made during the Committee of Permanent Secretaries (CPS) Meeting held in December 2014 with regard to operationalizing the new system. Also in attendance were Mr Abdilatif Ali (Somalia CEWERU Head) as well as Mr Osman Moallim (Head of formed Somalia NRI and current CEWERU FAU).

During the meeting Mr. Ali Mohamed Ali reiterated the Federal Republic of Somalia commitment to ensuring success of the piloting phase as well as the full implementation of the system. He further reassured CEWARN of the government’s continued assistance to strengthen the CEWERU. He indicated his Ministry’s intention to avail additional officers to improve the functionality of the Situation Room and to also avail himself to Somalia CEWERU in support of resource mobilization endeavors.

He pointed out his commitment to facilitate presentation of CEWERU’s plan to the Council towards consideration for budgetary allocation. Mr Ali reiterated Somalia special situation and the need for more support from CEWARN to enable the CEWERU catch up with other more progressive CEWERUs. The CEWARN team also had a meeting with the CSOs supporting data collection, heard their challenges and jointly agreed on how to address the challenges to ensure steady inflow of data.

The CEWARN Director Mr. Camlus Omogo and team extend warm Season’s greetings to all our partners and friends. Your continued partnership and goodwill is greatly appreciated.

Heads of CEWARN’s national Conflict Early Warning and Response Units (CEWERUs) of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda convened an annual planning and consultation meeting with CEWARN team in Mombasa from 12-13 December 2016.

During the meeting progress of work of the mechanism for the year 2016 particularly in relation to the piloting of CEWARN’s new data collection and analysis architecture in Somalia, Sudan and Uganda was reviewed.

In 2016, CEWARN trained and deployed an of information collection network of civil society in the three countries that regularly collect early warning data on 15 broad conflict themes categorized around five key sectors, namely, Social, Economic, environmental, Governance and Security.

The national CEWERUs also presented their planned activities for 2017 that centred on strengthening their conflict early warning and peace building work in cross border areas while expanding operations nationally in line with CEWARN’s expanded thematic focus on a broader spectrum of conflicts.

Subsequently, on 14 December, Heads of national CEWERUs met with national coordinators of IGAD’s Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRISI) from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

The main aim of the meeting was to share information on CEWERU and IDDRISI operations at the national level as well as explore mechanisms of effective collaboration. As the mandate of CEWERUs which is Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution (CPMR) is a key pillar of IDDRISI, coordination between the two mechanisms has long been considered as necessity. The meeting identified a range of measures such as the inclusion of CEWERUs in the national IDDRISI platforms as well as inclusion of IDDRISI national coordinators in national CEWERU Steering Committees as first possible steps of building coordination.

Senior officials of USAID East Africa led by the Deputy Chief of Democracy, Governance and conflict Office Ms. Amy Hamelin held a meeting with CEWARN staff on 19 September 2016 at the CEWARN secretariat in Addis Ababa and reviewed progress of CEWARN’s peace building and conflict prevention activities at regional and national levels that are supported by USAID.

The meeting was opened by welcoming remarks of the CEWARN Director Mr. Camlus Omogo who briefed the USAID EA team on CEWARN’s current focus in rolling out the 2012-2019 Strategy Framework that expands CEWARN’s conflict early warning and response operations to fifteen priority conflict themes. CEWARN had a limited focus on cross border pastoral and related conflicts in the period between 2002-2012. He also provided update on ongoing training programmes for local information networks in Somalia, Sudan and Uganda that have been selected for piloting.

USAID/EA is one of CEWARN’s long-standing partners since its establishment in 2002.

CEWARN team concluded a training for a newly constituted local Information Collection Network  (ICN) in Sudan. The training was held on 26 – 29 September 2016 in Khartoum.

 21 members of the ICN representing Darfur States, West Kordofan, Kassala and Khartoum were taken through CEWARN’s new early warning data collection and analysis system.

 Sudan is the last of three IGAD Member States selected for piloting of CEWARN’s new early warning system with an expanded operational mandate beyond its prior sole focus on cross-border pastoral and related conflicts. Similar trainings have been held for Somalia and Ugandan ICN members earlier in the year.

 The training follows CEWARN’s expanded operational mandate that was adopted in September 2012 and the subsequent renovation of its conflict data collection and analysis system to serve as a more robust regional conflict early warning and response mechanism. The trainings are aimed at the piloting of the new system in Somalia, Sudan and Uganda through the end of the current year as well as a gradual full launch of the system in all IGAD Member States within 2017.

One of CEWARN’s key partner organisations the Nairobi chapter of  the Global Peace Foundation (GPF) held a stakeholders meeting on the 26^th September 2016 in Nairobi to forge partnership with relevant organisations to ensure peaceful 2017 General Elections in Kenya.

The Director of CEWARN, Mr Camlus Omogo was part of this gathering with other representatives of institutions such as Brand Kenya Board, Kenya CEWERU, NCIC, EACC, Administration Police (implementing “Hallo Kenya” response initiative), National Counter Terrorism Centre, UNDP Kenya, UNEP, and Standard Group. Also present were head of EU delegation, Danish Ambassador, and representative from the US Embassy. 

During the meeting, Global Peace Foundation shared objectives and proposed activities to respond to any threat of destabilization in the country during the upcoming elections including activities aimed at empowering youth and women to advocate for their own rights and especially those from marginalized communities by building connections and engagement with local CSOs and county government. Some of the planned activities include: Regional Peace Workshops to provide civic education and Social Media Training, launching a Social Media campaign to train country based social media contributors, capacity building workshops for county based CSOs to mobilize youth and women to promote peaceful participation and a National Peace Forum involving women and Youth of Kenya s 8 regions with CSOs and county Government officials.

Thirty-three CEWARN local peace facilitators today completed a 10-day certificate course in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution that was organized by IGAD’s Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) in collaboration with the Nairobi-based Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations (HIPSIR).

The training programme that brought together local peace facilitators from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda was held at the HIPSIR Campus in Nairobi from 22 – 31 August 2016. The certificate course comprised modules on: Breaking cycles of violence, ‘Researching our practice and theory of change’, Understanding contemporary conflict and violence patterns, Understanding trauma healing as well as African wisdom in the search for Healing and Justice among numerous others.

The pool of trainees will form the CEWARN Facilitator Corps, which is a network of local peace actors that are ready for rapid dispatch by CEWARN to support peace negotiations; communal conflict mapping; participatory development of peace dividend projects; and participatory evaluation and learning around local response projects.

The training was supported by World Bank (through the PASSHA project), GIZ and IGAD’s JFA Partners.

Refer to Press release for further details.

IGAD’s Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) in collaboration with the Nairobi-based Hekima Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations (HIPSIR) will run 2nd round of the certificate course in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at the HIPSIR Campus in Nairobi from 21- 31 August 2016. The participants of the training will be CEWARN field monitors that have been serving as peace practitioners and early warning data collectors in CEWARN areas of reporting in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda. The training approach is hands-on – combining theory, research and practice – and is intended to enable participants to critically reflect on their practice, be challenged by emerging theories, and develop solid plans for strengthening their practice within their communities. Course modules will include: ‘Conflict Analysis: Understanding Contemporary Conflict and Violence’; ‘Strategies and Frameworks of Breaking Cyles of Violence’; ‘Community-based trauma healing; Fundamentals in Designing and Facilitating training’ as well as ‘Researching our own Practice.’ WHERE: HIPSIR campus – Riara Road, off Ngong Road (go to https://goo.gl/9VxZzu for a map) WHEN: 21 – 31 August 2016

A delegation from the East Africa Standby Force Coordination Mechanism (EASFCOM) which is the East African arm of the African Standby Force visited the CEWARN Secretariat in Addis Ababa on 18 October for a learning session.

The delegation received a briefing from CEWARN Director Dr. Martin Kimani and team on the ongoing work of the mechanism, its services and products.  Discussions that followed the briefing, focused on possible areas of closer engagement between the two institutions in light of the newly expanded operational mandate of CEWARN that allows it to undertake early warning and response work on wider conflict issues and geographic areas.

 The session is likely to result in a closer coordination  between the two structures, both of which are enjoined with complementary conflict early warning mandates in the Eastern and Horn of Africa regions.

The linkage will enrich CEWARN’s work on generating early warning information and insight that informs appropriate and timely decisions for conflict prevention. CEWARN’s services and products can also be put to more effective use by regional structures like (EASF) that hold a strong regional mandate in response.

CEWARN is looking for a qualifed consultant to undertake evaluation of its Rapid Response Fund (RRF).

See TOR for further details.

Deadline for Application is 28 August 2016.

Qualified candidates must send their application to:  recruitment@cewarn.org. Please indicate ‘Application: RRF evaluation consultancy’ in the subject line.