A battle early warning and early response (EWER) ecosystem has been creating in West Africa as multilateral organizations, governments, civil society teams, and others have established techniques that detect threats and supply important data to related authorities. But particular person EWER techniques are susceptible to a spread of failures–from gaps in information to decision-making bottlenecks to response coordination breakdowns. This report argues that linking particular person systems–a network-of-networks approach–can enhance outcomes for folks throughout West Africa and function a mannequin for different conflict-affected areas all over the world.
Abstract
Most forms of violent battle in West Africa elevated between 2016 and 2021, as financial and safety challenges eroded public confidence in governance and teams competed for scarce sources. Information present will increase in violent extremism, communal violence, political violence, and felony violence; and traits point out an extra escalation over the subsequent decade, with devastating humanitarian implications.
For at the very least 10 years, many establishments and organizations in West Africa have sought to go off these patterns of violence by establishing early warning and early response (EWER) techniques on the regional, nationwide, and native ranges. These techniques are meant to supply data on battle threat to permit actors with a mandate and skill to reply to take action in a well timed method and stop the escalation or unfold of violence.
Nevertheless, every system, irrespective of how refined, ultimately encounters the identical factors of failure: gaps in information and knowledge on components contributing to battle, in addition to issues round coordination, collaboration, and circulate of important data and evaluation to these finest positioned to reply.
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Analysis has proven {that a} network-of-networks method will help scale back the obstacles to profitable battle administration and prevention. As a result of battle dynamics are so complicated, no single EWER system may be versatile sufficient to reliably and successfully scale, adapt, and reply. However linking present networks can considerably enhance the impression of those techniques. To supply proof, examples of EWER techniques working on the regional, nationwide, and native ranges are detailed on this report. They display how a network-of-networks method will help handle a number of the persistent shortcomings of present EWER techniques.
In regards to the Report
This report examines the early warning and early response ecosystem in West Africa. It explores how present techniques monitor battle threat for evaluation and response planning, and the place there is perhaps alternatives to construct on them and create deeper linkages and synergies. The research–supported by the US Institute of Peace and carried out by the Fund for Peace–draws on information from eight early warning techniques, in depth social community evaluation, and interviews.
In regards to the Authors
Nate Haken is the vice chairman for analysis and innovation on the Fund for Peace in Washington, DC. Patricia Taft Nasri is chief of social gathering for Democracy Worldwide in Tunisia. Haken and Taft Nasri are the authors of Violence in Nigeria: Patterns and Developments, revealed by Springer in 2015. Nikita Reece, a PhD candidate at Universitat Jaume I, is a former analysis affiliate on the Fund for Peace.
