Conflict prevention and early warning

Summary

"Although the central analytical capacity will always be human, ICT can assist in building early warning systems."

Excerpt from The Role of ICT in Preventing, Responding to and Recovering from Conflict, published by the ICT4Peace Foundation.

Resources

OCHA Early Warning Unit

http://ochaonline.un.org/webpage.asp?Page=966 collaborates with other UN bodies, international NGOs, think tanks, and regional organizations in order to aggregate information and monitor and assess trends and events world-wide that may give rise to humanitarian crises. The Unit monitors developments in around thirty countries and shares its information with country teams on the ground and its other partners. In addition, the Early Warning Unit has assembled a compendium of case studies that are made available to practitioners world-wide via the Internet Forum on Crisis Prevention (IFCP) http://ochaonline.un.org/webpage.asp?Page=1327

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Crisis Prevention and Peace Building area

http://www.undp.org/bcpr/

The Humanitarian Early Warning Service (HEWSWeb)

http://www.hewsweb.org/home_page/default.asp provides a “global multi-hazard watch to support humanitarian preparedness”; at present it covers only natural disasters and not complex emergencies, but it presents

an interesting model for aggregating multiple information sources into an easy-to-use format.

SwissPeace

http://www.swisspeace.org, as well as hosting the KOFF Center for Peacebuilding (to strengthen Switzerland’s capacity to address violent conflicts) and the Afghan Civil Society Forum, has also established Frühanalyse von Spannungen und Tatsachenermittlung (FAST) International http://www.swisspeace.org/fast. FAST was created in 1998 for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) as an evolution from earlier

early warning systems developed in the wake of the crises in Rwanda and the Balkans. Today, FAST International is also supported by the Austrian, Canadian, Swedish and American governments’ respective development organizations. The system is focused on twenty countries or regions in Africa, Europe and Asia.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) “Early Warning Indicators for Preventive Policy”

http://www.sipri.org/contents/it/ewi.html. Launched in 2002, SIPRI’s project makes heavy use of the possibilities provided by new technology. As with the FAST system, the project seeks to break new ground by using a

sophisticated quantitative methodology that is complemented by expert analysis. The former relies on the statistical analysis of a database comprising more than 1200 structural and event indicators culled from a wide range of different sources, including a monthly expert survey. Trends are graphically displayed, a predictive model and ‘crisis index’ are employed, and the results of the current test phase will be made publicly available on the Internet. The geographic focus is on West Africa, and SIPRI has developed a network of experts in the region that not only provide analysis and data, but also participate in the development of the methodology and indicators. SIPRI is also developing an Integrating Fact Databases as part of its International Relations and Security Project, creating a federated system of databases at different geographical locations, accessible through a single user platform.

Rwanda Project of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland at College Park

http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/rwanda/index.htm. The project seeks to help advance reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi; to assist in this effort, the scholars involved are developing an Africa-focused interactive tool to assist development managers, implementers, and architects in integrating ICT into peace building efforts. Building on an index of forty conflict drivers, the tool will provide a web-based multi-layered matrix linking ICT program results and lessons learned to reduce the conflict potential of each driver and identify strategies for conflict sensitive development. After undergoing an extensive period of prototype testing, the tool will be fully operational by the end of 2005.

INA-TEWS: Indonesia Tsunami Early Warning System

As reported in the Asia News Network, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday launched the Rp 1.4 trillion (US$133 million) Indonesia Tsunami Early Warning System (InaTEWS), despite inadequacies that may cause a significant time lapse in its forecast. As of October 2008, the system comprised of 116 broadband seismometers, 45 tidal gauges and 3 buoys. The government initially planned to operate 160 broadband seismometers, 500 accelerographs, 40 GPS units, 80 tidal gauges and 23 Dart buoys. More information on the system and its capabilities on Deutsche Welle here.