Conclusion: the Steps Ahead

Eltayeb Haj Ateya and Dominique Wisler

These concluding remarks attempt to summarize the vivid discussion that took place during the main sessions of the Conference. We also take the opportunity of this concluding chapter to highlight key issues that we believe will aliment the coming discussion around the next steps for the constitution of an early warning system in Sudan .

Key component of success: lessons learnt from CEWARN

The CEWARN is the mechanism of conflict analysis and alert set up by IGAD members that have signed the 2002 protocol leading to its creation. Pragmatically, member states have decided to limit the application of the mechanism to 1) two cross-border regions and 2) pastoralist conflicts. In addition to the alert that can be produced by the national units of CEWARN (the so-called CEWERUs), mechanisms of rapid response are established at the national level. Kenya has created the most sophisticated response system at the moment, an institutional machinery that mobilises three levels of government: the national, the district and the local. In Ethiopia , measures are currently underway to establish a local level (the Local Committee) of the system as well. In Sudan , while the mechanism has been formally instituted, it has lack of the necessary financial support to become operational.

The CEWARN experts, Bizusew Mersha and Leonard Onyony concurred to consider the local committees as one of the key of the success of the alert and response mechanism. Another feature of the success of these committee in Kenya , so the experts, is the very nature of the social composition of these committees. According to the head of the CEWERU in Kenya , these local committees must include civil/traditional society as they can call upon traditional conflict mechanisms to solve problems identified by the EWS. While it was recognised by participants that security is a fundamental task of the state, it was also acknowledged that without calling upon local traditional resources the state – often weak in service delivery in Africa - is likely to fail to solve problems and conflicts. We need to add, however, that this finding might be related to the fact that CEWARN is applied only in rural areas in both Kenya and Ethiopia . In these areas, the social system still rests of the strength of communities and their traditional leaders. Interestingly, community policing initiatives that promote partnerships between the police and civil society to solve security issues was mentioned as one of the response mechanisms that local committees have been promoting in Kenya .

The consensus among participants to the conference was that the CEWARN mechanism is important and that the mechanism should be strengthened with Kenya being a role model in this regard. The activation of the participation of Sudan , as one of the signatory of the 2002 protocol creating CEWARN, was recommended. The security situation in Southern Sudan has dramatically improved following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and conditions are reunited to allow the mechanism to be established and field monitors to be deployed safely. In addition, since the protocol leading to CEWARN has been signed in Khartoum and that Sudanese officials, as pointed out by ambassador Mohammed Abdelghaffar, play a key role in the leading organs of the mechanism, Sudan has a special responsibility to activate its commitments and facilitate the discussion about the evolution of the mechanism.

A new EWS for Sudan or an extension of CEWARN?

Participants seemed also to agree with the statement that CEWARN in its current form is too limited to adequately reflect both the geographical scope and the nature of conflicts in Sudan . The limitation is not necessarily intrinsic to CEWARN as, in the 2002 protocol, other issues than pastoralist conflicts are namely mentioned. The limitation is not technical either as the basis for the CEWARN event analysis methodology and technical platform is a much more encompassing EWS created by the Bern-based NGO SwissPeace. In other words, CEWARN has a legal and technical potential for expansion.

The most important limitation of CEWARN however is of political nature. CEWARN is anchored institutionally in IGAG, an intergovernmental body focusing on cross-national and cross-border issues. As such, IGAD is not the most appropriate body for leading a discussion on a national EWS. While legally other conflicts than pastoralist conflicts could be included in the future system, empirically the chance to see the system evolve quickly are meagre. Finally a national EWS should not become prisoner of intergovernmental decisions that are not necessarily be in the best interest of a national system. Sudan needs an encompassing conflict EWS capable to deal with a wide range of issues. Therefore the consensus among the participants was that while Sudan should fulfil its obligations under the CEWARN protocol, it should also have its own conflict EWS adapted to the nature and scope of conflicts in Sudan .

Independence of a conflict EWS.

There was a large consensus also over the critical importance of having an independent EWS. This independence was viewed by many speakers as a precondition for both the credibility and the capacity of the mechanism to mobilize trust in the society at large. This discussion led to a fundamental, philosophical debate over the ultimate function of an EWS. Unlike intelligence data, so the contribution of the director of the South African Institute for Security Studies, Jakkie Cilliers, EWS do not serve strictly speaking or, rather, do not serve only the state. EWS have a larger audience or public. Normatively, they serve the government, civil society, political parties, donors, and other groups with a vested interest in peace. The dilemma might not be whether they serve more civil society than the state. However, the civil-society orientation becomes more fundamental in country in transition. When the regime may not, or not yet, have a full legitimacy, the independence of an EWS from the public administration and the authorities becomes an essential condition to serve this extended public. The more legitimacy the regime has, the less critical is the issue of independence of the EWS. One expert mentioned that in country in transition, the EWS might also have a transitional nature until democracy matures.

In this discussion, a close but weaker concept mentioned by Ambassador Mohammed Abdelghassar is the notion of the “transparency” of the mechanism. A transparent, and we may add “accountable”, mechanism might be a second-best scenario so to speak. In his article, John N. Clarke argued that a fully independent EWS runs the risk to be disconnected from, and not heard by, the agencies with a mandate to act upon alarms.  

Institutionalize independence: a university or a foundation, or both?

Intimately linked to the discussion regarding the nature of a conflict EWS and its public is the question of its optimal institutional anchorage. The majority of the speakers seemed to agree that the conflict analysis component of an EWS should be located institutionally in a university. Drawing on experiences in Ethiopia or Kenya , a peace research institute would be a good choice or an academic centre to be created that would specialise in conflict analyses and conflict prevention. The EWS would benefit from the inherent credibility of universities as centres of production of independent and objective knowledge, based on scientific iterative protocols (Popper). An alternative to this strictly academic option was evoked by an expert. The expert called for the creation of a “foundation” or a governmental NGO (a so-called “gong”). A gong has the advantage, according to the expert, to be financed by the government but, through its legal status and its Foundation Council, enjoy the necessary independence from the government. Typically, members of a Foundation Council are experts, representatives of civil and political society, as well as representatives of the public administration. A further argument in favour of a foundation is that the Council of the Foundation could be national as representative of selected states, the Government of Southern Sudan and the Government of National Unity for instance could be represented in this body. This would not be the case if a national EWS would be anchored in a university as universities, under the new Interim National Constitution, are controlled at sub-national level. On the other hand, the location of a EWS centre in a university would benefit from the existing professional services (logistic, finance, etc.) from the university and make it possibly effective rapidly. Still another option to be considered would be a combination between a Foundation and academic institutions, the latter being constituted to oversee the activities of the latter. To reflect the federal nature of the new Interim National Constitution, a consortium of research centers or universities could also be relevant. In conclusion, further thoughts need to be dedicated to the issue of the appropriate institutional architecture of the future national EWS.

EWS coordination

There at least two EWS operating in Sudan in natural catastrophes and humanitarian issues, while, as mentioned above, there is no conflict EWS. One of the issues raised during the conference was that of the coordination of existing EWS and future EWS. Since problems of famine, desertification, humanitarian issues are intimately related to conflicts, the linkages should be made at institutional level in order for the knowledge gained to be adequately analysed. Coordination rather than integration was the master word. Experts underlined rightly that EWS have a different shape (structure, method, activities) depending on their purpose and field of analysis. It would be illusionary to attempt to formulate a single integrated model covering all the issues ranging from natural catastrophes to political crises. The way ahead is rather to link the respective EWS that have been carefully designed to serve their specific purpose. Such a linkage should occur at the national level. Information gained from the various systems must be allowed to flow towards other systems in order to elaborate more complex analyses and address adequately the systematic linkages between social systems. The issue of coordination need to be further developed as at the end of the conference it remained unclear what was meant exactly under coordination. The Presidency was mentioned as a potential adequate location of a coordinating national body. In follow-up discussions, it will be useful to distinguish between the coordination of the early warning data collection and analysis, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, as the discussion of the Ethiopian and the Sudanese cases shows, on the coordination and formalization of the linkage with the early response mechanism.

EWS and the peace process

Another element of the institutional (and functional) discussion was the question of the linkage with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. It was mentioned by some participants that an EWS could perform an important function in the monitoring of the peace process. The CPA and the implementation of the plan agreed in the Joint Assessment Mission (JAM), are already monitored at an institutional level via the CPA monitoring commission. However, these monitoring activities are essentially “output-oriented” and say little on the “impact” of the peace agreement on the ground.

An EWS could fill the gap as it offers a reliable tool for measuring the likelihood of the resurgence of conflicts. Such a conflict EWS could serve eventually to redirect priorities and donor aid as appropriate to strengthen the impact of the peace process. As the Joint National Transition Team (JNTT) has received the mandate to monitor the peace process, a conflict EWS could become a major JNTT tool serving its function. An important weakness of this suggestion is related to the intrinsic limits of the jurisdiction of the JNTT. The JNTT applies only to the north-south peace deal; not to the new peace agreement signed by the government of National Unity with the Eastern Front or the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). An exclusive linkage with an organ created by one of these separate peace agreements runs against the ambition of a single EWS covering the Sudan as a whole. For this reason, it seems preferable to establish an institutionally distinct national EWS that, when required, could provide specific analyses for the benefit of the JNTT or, for instance in the Darfur case, the Transitional Darfur Authority.

About the authors:

Dominique Wisler holds a B.A. in philosophy ( University of Fribourg , Switzerland ), a master in international relations (Institute for International Relations, Geneva ) and a PhD from the University of Geneva . He taught at the University of Geneva from 1994 to 2002. He has conducted many expert mandates for national and international organizations. Most recently, he served as senior advisor at UNDP country office in Sudan . Dr Wisler is the author of numerous publications in the field of political sociology. He serves in the editorial board of Police Practice and Research and edit for the International Police Executive Symposium a Working Paper Series on policing

Eltayeb Haj Ateya has studied at the Universities of Khartoum and La Sorbonne. He is the director of the Peace Research Institute of the University of Khartoum

For quotation, refer to this article as follows:

Ateya, Eltayeb Haj and Dominique Wisler, Conclusion: The Steps Ahead, in An Early Warning System for Sudan, edited by Dominique Wisler and Eltayeb Haj Ateya, Khartoum, Coginta, 2007

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