Monrovia – The West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP) has launched its Election Monitoring, Analysis and mitigation (EMAM) project and inauguration of the Liberia Elections Early Warning and response group.
Report by Henry Karmo – [email protected]
WANEP is the leading regional civil society organization in conflict prevention and peace building conceived in 1996, and officially launched in 1998 in response to the civil wars, instabilities and humanitarian crises that plagued West Africa in the 1990’s.
Mrs. Victoria Wollie, WANEP National Network Coordinator at the launch said, the group places particular emphasis on collaborative approach to peace building with the conviction that it is cheaper to prevent violent conflicts than to react.
Since 2000, WANEP has been committed to the institutionalization of early warning systems in west through the West Africa Early Warning and Response Program as part of efforts to prevent and mitigate violent conflicts in the region.
The institutionalization of early warning as an integral part of peace building has yielded tremendous dividends and constituted the basis for the WANEP-ECOWAS partnership for conflict prevention (ECOWARN) that has existed since 2002.
WANEP also instituted a National Early warning system (NEWS), as a platform for providing robust information to ECOWARN via the engagement of over 360 monitors across the region.
WANEP as a group has a niche in implementing programs to equip the youth, business owners, women, traditional leaders and state agencies with requisite skills in conflict prevention and supports them to find local solutions to their unique conflict situations.
The launch brought together stakeholders from sectors including government and the Civil Society.
Making remarks at the launch, Boakai Dukly, NEC commissioner for legal Affairs, cautioned the group to manage information they gathered in the field because according to him information dissemination and handling could promote or destroyed the Peace.
Dukly said: “Handle information you receive with care. Information management is important in promoting peace or causing chaos.”
In other remarks Col. Patrick Smith of the Liberian National Police who represented Col. Gregory Coleman committed the Liberia nation Police to ensuring total collaboration with political parties and individual politicians in these elections.
Under the project, trained monitors working under the supervision of their team leaders are expected to submit regular reports on election related threats across the districts/regions in the country into the NEWS platform.
Aside from their supervisory roles, the team leaders also have the responsibility of verifying the reports and providing levels of quality control.
Similarly, the regional monitors are charged with providing weekly highlights to support the weekly reports that will be generated by the NEWS Manager.
The report will be shared with the National Election Response Group (NERG), a group of credible individuals drawn from various echelons of the society.
At the district level, the trained district monitors will provide early warning reports on the threats before, during and after the elections and debrief the District Security Committee (DISEC) in their various districts.
WANEP/USAID NEWS project is designed to mitigate election related violence in five countries of West Africa including; Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Ghana and Sierra Leone with the goal to enhance early warning and response systems to reduce the risk of election violence in West Africa.
It creates a platform to access information on risk factors that could threaten the conduct of elections and provides avenues for exchange of relevant information to key stakeholders to respond to election violence before, during and after the elections, among others.