Early Warning In Conflict Prevention

Background Sketch: Howard Adelman.

The Horn of Africa has come to be defined by the frequency and intensity of its violent conflicts. Yet, whereas in other regions conflict prevention stresses formal, top-down inter-governmental structures, in the Horn of Africa an alternative conflict management regime that seeks to build on local capacity and is based on inclusive and collaborative decision-making has emerged. This publication outlines the two-year process of CEWARN's and IGAD's development.

Based on literature review and inputs from surveyed agencies, this book assesses the value and role of early warning for the prevention of violent conflict and identifies the most effective systems.

The Cairo Declaration adopted by the OAU in 1993 established a Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution. Discusses ways in which the OAU should extend the concept of early warning and its application to conflicts in Africa.

"The purpose of this thesaurus and glossary is to present definitions of terms and concepts used in the field of conflict, especially with relation to intra-state conflicts and the practice of early warning and conflict prevention" -- v.

Based on literature review and inputs from surveyed agencies, this book assesses the value and role of early warning for the prevention of violent conflict and identifies the most effective systems.

State failure, ethnopolitical war, genocide, famine, and refugee flows are variants of a type of complex political and humanitarian crisis, exemplified during the 1990s in places like Somalia, Bosnia, Liberia, and Afghanistan. The international consequences of such crises are profound, often threatening regional security and requiring major inputs of humanitarian assistance. They also may pose long-term and costly challenges of rebuilding shattered governments and societies. A vital policy question is whether failures can be diagnosed far enough in advance to facilitate effective international efforts at prevention or peaceful transformation. This volume of original essays examines crisis early warning factors at different levels, in different settings, and judges their effectiveness according to various models. Top contributors offer answers along with analyses as they move from early warning to early response in their policy recommendations.

"Can we prevent violent conflicts and wars in the future? This volume reflects the growing interest in developing an early warning capability within the research community, in international humanitarian and aid agencies and in international institutions such as the United Nations." "By 'early warning' we mean information that can provide a timely alert to potential conflicts. Key issues covered in the book include: the manner in which the concept of early warning is translated into methodological approaches; identification of root causes for disputes and conflict situations; selection of indicators; determination of methodologies; use of new technologies; possible development of networking; search for conditions for the settlement of conflicts. The processing, analysis and evaluation of information is systematically approached in the collection." "The reader will find case-studies and practical approaches as well as theory-oriented papers. Authors have been encouraged to take a real-life approach rather than pursue a lofty and inaccessible theoretical discourse of little consequence."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved