From Early Warning to Early Response in Conflict Prevention
The last decades have been marked by instability of the international scene due to the increasing number of inter- and intra-state conflicts. These conflicts are caused by violent extremism, climate change, the deterioration of a state's socio-economic situation, a shortage of resources and, last but not least, civilians' growing distrust of its institutions. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 56 States suffered armed conflict in 2022 in the Americas, Asia and Oceania, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa, 10 more than in 2021.
The concept of conflict prevention was coined in the 1960s. It refers to diplomatic approaches through multiple activities and strategies aimed at anticipating conflict or neutralising violence before it escalates into conflict. It is a broad term that includes early warning and early response systems. The concept has grown in popularity to become a strategy within international organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and within national governments. Early warning and response systems are subject to specific regulations and commitments by countries depending on the context and the circumstances. With multiple definitions depending on the type of crisis to be managed, this article focuses on the conceptualisation of systems aimed at avoiding armed conflict and on the observation that, despite this, conflicts continue to break out between different state and non-state actors, particularly in Africa.
The concept of early warning
Early warning consists of identifying factors that predict the onset of violence. It comprises five main mechanisms: data collection, data analysis, assessment of different scenarios, formulation of possible actions, and the transmission of recommendations to decision-makers. This comprehensive monitoring is carried out by internal and external analysts in the region concerned, who focus on political leaders, political groups, armed groups, and other relevant stakeholders likely to jeopardise order. The spectrum assessment areas is broad and can focus on economic, political, demographical, social, ethnic, environmental, health, or safety factors. In practical terms, intelligence gathering and analysis provide an in-depth understanding of the social dynamics of the area threatened by conflict and the interests of the involved actors involved. By identifying potential scenarios and presenting them to decision-makers, they can anticipate the deterioration of a situation and develop a coherent strategy and effective intervention.
To make the early warning system more effective, four considerations need to be taken into account in addition to the overall monitoring. Firstly, the political analysis should identify the parties involved in the conflict who are in favour of peace. This targeting would make it possible to establish a relationship of trust with actors who have the potential to promote non-violent solutions to the crisis. Secondly, analysts should keep observing the situation to foresee unexpected developments during and after the warning. In addition, analysing the behaviours of the stakeholders involved could help to understand the actions taken and the causes of the instability. Finally, when elaborating the strategy, it should be essential for analysts to determine the actors best qualified to lead the resolution of the conflict. These considerations would make early warning credible and help to understand if and how political actors can exacerbate a crisis, what actions can accelerate tensions, and what form a crisis might take if left unchecked.
As the early warning system only serves to alert and advise on a possible crisis, it is often combined with an early response system to make conflict prevention comprehensive and effective.
The concept of early response
Early response consists of proposing timely and appropriate initiatives to ease tensions or put an end to the outbreak of violence. It brings together available tools and instruments from government, regional, and international organisations. This system is classified into three levels of action:
Facilitative - high-level diplomacy, mediation, and confidence-building measures;
Coercive - diplomatic penalties, sanctions, threats of international justice, and the use of force in extreme cases; and
Incentive - financial aid, security guarantees, and institutional support.
The classification of responses allows decision-makers to react in the short and long term, which would define the outcome of the conflict. Short-term measures cover interventions during an election, within civil society groups or representative authorities, joint peace missions, military deployment, or the conduct of mediation and negotiation between conflicting parties. Long-term measures cover the management of interactive peace dialogues, the organisation of problem-solving workshops, or the sensitisation of policy-makers and civil parties to a potential danger. It is therefore the type of crisis that will determine the form of the response.
This system is complementary to the early warning system, which enables conflicts to be predicted and prevented. Following the early warning assessment, researchers, academics, and external organisations submit a range of responses that could be implemented by national government, local, regional and international organisations. This allows decision-makers to tackle the real sources of conflict and prevent them not only on the surface but also in depth. Responses elaborated tend to be more structural over time by targeting the key socio-economic, political, and institutional factors that can lead to a crisis such as addressing marginalisation and inequality, strengthening social cohesion and social capacities, promoting local development, ensuring legitimate and equitable justice, and building security institutions. Therefore, early response helps to persuade and encourage decision-makers to pursue actions aimed at avoiding or minimising violence and to propose solutions to contain it.
The effectiveness of these systems: a case study of the African Union’s early warning and response system and the Sudan conflict
As mentioned above, an early warning and early response system can also be implemented at regional level. This section focuses on these systems within the African Union and their effectiveness. The organisation establishes policies and provides political and financial instruments to prevent conflicts within the continent.
Africa has always been confronted with cycles of conflict, the origins and degree of violence of which vary from one region to another. In 2012, the African Union set up the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) to gather information, monitor situations and formulate responses for decision-makers. In 2017, institutional reforms were undertaken to make the system more effective and address financial dependence on international donors. The reform resulted in the creation of a new department of Political Affairs, Peace and Security, and a Situation Room supervising early warning and early response in Africa. It has strengthened cooperation and coordination between economic communities and Member States at regional level. However, despite the implementation of the CEWS, Africa recorded its highest number of conflicts on the continent in 2019. The Peace Research Institute Oslo counted 25 state conflicts including ethnic, religious, environmental, or societal issues. Consequently, it can be said that the new departments created do not fulfil their mandates. Instead of focusing on early warning and response, they are concentrating more on crisis management of ongoing conflicts, thus losing sight of their purpose.
Despite the existence of the CEWS, Sudan has been facing a violent conflict since April 2023. This conflict opposes General Dagalo, leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, and General al-Burhan, commander of the Sudan national military force, due to institutional disagreements, economic and security instability, humanitarian needs, and poverty following their military coup in October 2021. Nevertheless, Sudan is a member of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which operates the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN), an early warning system implemented in 2022. As part of this regional community, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda have promoted a system that seeks to collect information from religious and civil society leaders, youth, and women to avoid crises. This strategy allows a greater number of factors to be gathered and used, enabling analysts to decipher potential tensions. However, this mechanism operates under a strict mandate, including the prevention of pastoralist conflicts in which governments are not involved, and the non-management of civil conflict between government and rebel groups supported by neighbouring governments. Furthermore, within this mandate, CEWARN can only provide accurate and verified information to the states concerned in order to enable them to take appropriate measures to prevent conflict. Consequently, the most competent body that could have prevented the conflict in Sudan was limited in terms of action, geographical scope and conflicting interests.
Since the coup in October 2021, the international community has been striving to restore civil democracy. At that time, UN Special Envoy Volker Perthes warned of the possibility of a further fragmentation of Sudan if no inclusive dialogue was initiated. He also advised rebuilding trust with the Sudanese people and regaining economic, financial and political support from the international arena. A return to the path of democratic transition in Sudan would have reduced tensions and the risk of escalating violence, and enabled international donors to restore their financial support for development, which had a major impact on early warning and response monitoring. After alerting to the situation, Volker Perthes proposed short- and medium-term actions such as stopping arbitrary arrests, releasing political detainees, and guaranteeing civilians’ rights to protest and assemble. Despite these proposals for rapid intervention to prevent the escalation of violence, the conflict that broke out in April 2023 is still ongoing, with no end in sight. Regional early warning and response systems did not prevent the conflict from breaking out, despite the existence of obvious factors such as institutional instability following a coup d'état, the country's poor economic situation, deplorable health, climatic and living conditions, and security instability in various parts of the country.
What is making these systems uncertain?
Several factors can make early warning and response systems uncertain. Having or benefiting from such systems does not guarantee that the tensions observed will not turn into conflict. Three factors can be taken into consideration when a conflict emerges despite the presence of an early warning and response system:
human unpredictability,
the country’s socio-economic situation, and
the strengthening of the country's institutional capacities.
Firstly, the stress faced by decision-makers is an important factor that needs to be taken into consideration in conflict prevention. Stress can be seen as a response resulting in positive or negative outcomes, based on a cognitive interpretation of a situation. Lazarus and Folkmans introduced a strategy called “stress coping”, which can be associated with a possible outbreak of conflict. Depending on the situation, this involves adopting a problem-focused response, an emotion-focused response or a self-esteem-focused approach. Thanks to this analysis, in the case of a possible crisis and a stressful challenge, it is possible to identify three types of responses.
Acknowledgement of a lack of control over the situation, which may lead to a lack of appropriate decisions.
Emotional outburst, which can lead to subjective decisions.
Confidence that tensions can be managed using available means, which can lead to unmeasured decisions.
As a result, human and psychological factors in times of crisis make the early warning and response system unpredictable. The decisions of decision-makers are indirectly influenced by their beliefs, convictions, emotions, and their advisors, which can compromise the effectiveness and certainty of the early warning and response system.
Second, violent conflicts frequently erupt in states with fragile economies and social structures. National budgets are distributed differently across countries and, since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the level of national budget execution is an indicator of the government's ability to deliver public services and achieve development goals. With the overriding objective of ending poverty, promoting prosperity for people, and supporting sustainable development, decision-makers are seeking to strengthen institutional and organisational capacities. Therefore, conflict prevention is becoming a secondary concern, particularly for developing countries. Even if conflict prevention is less costly than conflict management, decision-makers may remain reluctant to intervene before violence escalates, undermining the effectiveness of the early warning and response systems.
Last but not least, early warning and response systems can be uncertain due to a lack of efficient institutional capacity building. Institutions are key actors in conflict prevention because they collect and analyse relevant information, identify threats, and assess warnings and appropriate responses for decision-makers. The escalation of violence is mainly due to a lack of substantial information or the inability to deploy the necessary resources to prevent conflict from breaking out. Consequently, early warning and response systems are difficult to implement, both for the country concerned and for external actors involved in conflict prevention.
How to make early warning and early response systems more efficient?
The current operation of early warning and response systems has shortcomings and therefore needs to be adjusted and reinforced on an ad-hoc basis. Four recommendations can be made to make these systems more effective.
The first recommendation concerns strengthening cooperation between national governments and external stakeholders to promote conflict prevention. To be more effective, it is important to focus on the exchange of information, strategies and materials. This will help to create coordinated and rapid responses in the field of conflict prevention. In this way, early warning and response systems will be more comprehensive, targeted, and responsive.
The second recommendation is about the effectiveness of actions taken under the rapid reaction system. National governments are on the front line when domestic tensions escalate into violent conflict. Therefore, governments must have available and flexible emergency funds that can be deployed in the event of an imminent crisis. The availability of the fund allows the decision-maker to react quickly, without worrying about prioritising socio-economic issues. The flexibility of the fund means that responses can be tailored to specific situations. In this way, less developed countries will reduce their dependence on international partners.
The third recommendation concerns the inclusion of civil society in conflict prevention, particularly women and youth. Women have an important voice due to their involvement at community level, since they are involved at all levels of the local population, organising the community. Young people are seen as the future of the community because they are at the heart of public policy and the first to be sensitised to enable long-term action. Together, they have a strong voice, could be agents of change in conflict prevention, be a valuable source of information, make early warning analysis more accurate, and enable appropriate responses. Moreover, by increasing their visibility and influence in the decision-making process, national government and external actors could seize the opportunity to raise awareness and prevent tensions from flaring up again.
Combined with the previous point, the fourth and final recommendation highlights the importance of reintegrating communities into society. As institutions in fragile countries struggle to provide adequate services and maintain a growing economy, civilians tend to gravitate towards organisations capable of performing government functions. These organisations are sometimes illegal armed groups. This is a practical relationship in which communities give their loyalty to illegal groups in exchange for the provision of necessary resources and security. The challenge is to reintegrate civilians into society by re-establishing a relationship of trust with the government. This requires effective institutions, strong democratic governance and economic growth for civil society.