Be Honest When Reporting– WANEP Advise Monitors

WANEP’s conflict early warning monitors and reporters have been charged to show a high sense of meticulousness when gathering information for onward transfer into its Early Warning System (EWS) in order to ensure an effective outcome of conflict response and human security strategy.

This call comes at a time when some state security agencies were often quick to dispel early warning signals picked up by the conflict management and resolution non-governmental organization, West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, during monitoring by its monitors and reporters spread across Ghana and other West African countries.

The need for effective multi-tiered, multi-national and multi-sectoral platform that enhances human security, peace and development has been recognized as an effective mechanism to respond to violent conflicts and humanitarian crises such as the ones bedeviling the West Africa Sub-region.

But central to the aforementioned mechanism, according to WANEP’s Regional Programmes Director Chukwuemeka Eze, was the need for an effective information-gathering system that facilitated informed conflict prevention or mitigation interventions.

Chukwuemeka Eze, Regional Program Dir. 

Speaking at a two-day training workshop on Early Warning for conflict prevention/mitigation organized by WANEP-Ghana in Tamale for its monitors and reporters, Mr. Eze noted that as countries and societies continually faced new human security challenges and threats from diverse sources and actors, early warning and early response had gained wider recognition as a core element in the promotion and maintenance of peace and security for long term social and economic development.

He stressed the need for conflict early warning monitors and reporters to always ensure that information they gathered were the truth or they could be verified so as not to dent their own reputation as well as that of WANEP-Ghana and its partners.

He also said WANEP through its national networks had local peacebuilding organizations that constituted the core of the Network in each country, but the lack of civil society-driven functional early warning systems at national level had limited the scope and scale of data reported into the system, which in turn invariably impacted on the level of analysis developed and response designed to address conflict risk factors. 

Mr. Eze disclosed that the current numeric strength of WANEP early warning reporters in each country was insufficient as they were burdened with a huge task of regular monitoring of entire regions and provinces that led to inadequate coverage and report on issues of peace and human security within their country.  

The early warning system of WANEP-Ghana contributes immensely to the volume of data and information recorded through the improved reporting on a day-to-day basis on emerging issues and proximate conditions from communities which otherwise would not have been captured in media reports. The system provides WANEP-Ghana with added information to enable greater understanding with regard to the dimensions, trends, dynamics and connectors of conflicts in local communities with implications for accentuating the risk factors in the country.   

Justin Bayor, National Network Coordinator

In his opening address, National Network Coordinator of WANEP-Ghana Justin Bayor, said since 2008, the NGO had been operating the Ghana Alert Project; an important component of it was the establishment of the Ghana Early Earning System (EWS) called GHANAWARN that played a tremendous role in averting numerous cases of violence in the country.

In order to strengthen the system, the organization he noted, had decided to improve on the number and quality of reports that were inputted into it by encouraging the general public to report all incidence of human insecurity to its office whilst it also trained its reporters in order to improve the quality of reports that it gets, hence the Tamale workshop.

WANEP-Ghana according to the National Network Coordinator, was also working with state agencies such as the Security Council to help them appreciate and respond to the information that the organization provided and not treat them as suspect information. Hence, Mr. Bayor stated that they would be linked to the EWS through an SMS alert system and they would as well, be trained in basic conflict handling mechanisms/civilian peacekeeping. 

Meanwhile, WANEP-Ghana was established in 2002 to prevent, resolve and transform violent conflicts through collective and coordinated efforts of non-governmental institutions, organizations and individuals actively engaged in peacebuilding practice in Ghana. 

Its vision is to see that Ghana is characterized by a just and violent free society where people co-exist in peace, unity and harmony, allowing them to grow and chart their own course while meeting their basic needs and contributing effectively to national development.

WANEP-Ghana also intends to prevent, resolve and transform violent conflicts and foster peaceful coexistence among Ghanaian communities through collaboration, cooperation and capacity building among stakeholders and civil society-based peacebuilding practitioners as part of its mission.