UTILISE WARNING SIGNALS IN MANAGING CONFLICTS - NGOs URGE GOVT (PAGE 12, MAR 12, 2011)

LOCAL and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the Northern Region have urged the government to utilise early warning signals towards managing conflicts in the country.
According to them, the failure of the government to tackle conflicts at their infancy contributes to the escalation of conflicts in many parts of the country, making it more difficult and costly to manage.
The NGOs made the call at a workshop in Tamale organised by the Ghana Network for Peace-building (GHANEP) to introduce the representatives of these NGOs to GHANEP’s early warning system and seek collaboration towards its successful implementation.
The NGOs noted that the government could avoid the situation of having to spend huge sums of money on peace operations and other conflict intervention measures.
It is estimated, for instance, that the government spends millions of cedis to cater for security officials who have been detailed to maintain peace in conflict prone zones in the country, as is currently the case in Bawku.
Such monies, the NGOs noted, could have been spent on the provision of schools, roads, health centres, educational materials and many more.
“We need to utilise early warning systems to enable us deal effectively with the countless conflict situations in all parts of the country,” Mr Damma Salifu, a representative of the United Nation’s Joint Human Security Programme stated.
He said early warning becomes irrelevant when it is not followed by an effective and timely response to these threats.
Mr Salifu again stressed the need for all the organisations working in the area of conflict management to avoid duplication of efforts and synergise their activities to achieve best results.
GHANEP launched the National Early Warning and Response System (EWRS) in 2009 to assist security institutions and peace analysts with timely information on security threats in various parts of the country, especially those identified as hot spots.
As part of the implementation, GHANEP operates a web-based system, known as ‘Ghanawarn’, which is designed to capture early warning information on possible crime and conflicts in the form of incident and situational reports. It is the second of that sort in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A database centre that is situated in Tamale, at the GHANEP secretariat, co-ordinates these reports from various surveillance teams and inputs this information onto the Ghanawarn system.
The objective of the EWRS is to shift the focus of the country from an interventionist approach of managing conflicts to a preventive and peace-building approach.
According to the National Co-ordinator of GHANEP, Mr Justin Bayor, it is far easier and less costly to intervene in conflicts at its early stage than when it degenerates.
He said this was the reason why GHANEP was promoting the early warning system as a more effective tool for managing conflicts in the country.
Mr Bayor noted that in addition to the implementation of the early warning system, GHANEP provided training to various groups in conflict transformation and management.