Conflict Early Warning and Early Response

On behalf of the Crisis Management Initiative, IASCI is conducting a research project related to information management and sharing in crisis response situations. IASCI is contacting fellow practitioners from key institutions and agencies to canvas their expert views and experiences regarding information systems and features of utility, and to learn about primary information gaps and constraints.

If you have any questions or suggestions, you can contact IASCI at info@iasci.info

David Nyheim has just produced an excellent report (PDF) on early warning entitled: “Can Violence, War and State Collapse be Prevented? The Future of Operational Conflict Early Warning and Response Systems.”

I highly recommend reading the report as I have found it to be a particularly honest and frank review of our field. In what follows, I list the main findings articulated by David, especially those I find the most critical. In a future blog entry, I will add some of my own thoughts in light of a conversation I had with David earlier today.

In my opinion, some of David’s most important findings includes the following points, which I fully agree with since I have made the same arguments in several of my own papers.

• The field has evolved significantly since its initial conceptualisation and early warning has been integrated into the policies of many organisations. But we cannot say today that we are in a position to prevent another Rwandan genocide. Conflict early warning faces similar challenges to those it did 15 years ago. And there are new challenges on the horizon. [Note: I have somewhat provocatively used the analogy of the Emperor's Clothes to describe our field, David is far more diplomatic, but I'm learning.]

• In spite of increased resources going into early warning, key shortcomings of governmental and multilateral interventions in violent conflict remain, including faulty analysis, late, uncoordinated and contradictory engagement and poor decision making. [Note: Susanna Campbell and I have written a study specifically on decision-making and early warning.]

• Analytical tools fundamentally over-simplify complex and fluid violent conflicts and situations of state fragility.  They provide simple snap-shots that are quickly outdated and the quality of analysis suffers from data deficits that characterise many of the countries covered by such studies. [Note: see my paper on Conflict Early Warning/Response: Insights from Complexity Science.]

• Early warning and response will be faced with an evolution of threats over the next decade. These threats will come from the combined impacts on conflict and instability of climate change, fall-outs from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, fall-outs of the war on terror, and the increasing criminalization of conflict, among other factors. However, the future relevance of the field depends largely on work undertaken now to be able to understand and provide useful analysis on these new emerging threats. [Note: see my paper on "Networking Disaster and Conflict Early Warning Systems for Climate Change."]

• Technological advancements have played an important role in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of early warning systems. Most inter-governmental and non-governmental systems, however, have not gone beyond the use of email and websites for dissemination, and communication technology for data collection. Governmental and some inter-governmental systems do benefit from access and resources to use satellite and GIS in their analysis and reporting. However, access to technology remains very unequal between systems. [Note: the current use and change role of information communication technology in conflict early warning, crisis mapping and disaster response is the main topic of my dissertation research at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI).]

• A state-centric focus in conflict management does not reflect an understanding of the role played by civil society organisations in situations where the state has failed. An external, interventionist, and state-centric approach in early warning fuels disjointed and top down responses in situations that require integrated and multilevel action. [Note: this is precisely why I have argued for a bottom-up, people-centered approach to early warning. See also the excellent paper by Casey Barrs.]

• Micro-level responses to violent conflict by “third generation early warning systems” are an exciting development in the field that should be encouraged further. These kinds of responses save lives. [Note: I have just delievered a 20-page document to our donor at HHI on third generation early warning systems.]

Early warning signals appear most clearly to those immediately around the disputants. “One cannot solely rely on the statistics produced by leading international development agencies” to monitor potential for conflict escalation (1). In fact, “according to 1994 World Bank data, Rwanda was the most egalitarian country among all low-income and middle-income countries in the world” (2). To this end, more micro level analysis is needed to capture “The View from Below,” i.e.,  the underlying web of complex political, social and economic networks. In addition, “if we are to make a difference for the majority of the people who suffer the horrible effects of civil wars, we ought to also focus our research on how ordinary people adjust their lives to cope with the constraints and opportunities brought about by civil war” (3).

But most conventional conflict early warning systems generate “macro level analysis and policy prescriptions that are generally based on a snapshot rather than a dynamic view of the changing situations on the ground” (4). In fact, the majority of references to conflict early warning are to top-down, inter-governmental  early warning systems with limited (if any) links to local communities. The field of conflict early warning is therefore shifting towards a more bottom-up approach, stressing the need for something like an indigenous “local information network” to get a better glimpse of “the view from below”. For sure, “a democratic flow of information is the first condition for a democratic and open system of warning and resolution” (5).

Enter Global Voices:

At a time when the international English-language media ignores many things that are important to large numbers of the world’s citizens, Global Voices aims to redress some of the inequities in media attention by leveraging the power of citizens’ media. We’re using a wide variety of technologies - weblogs, podcasts, photos, video, wikis, tags, aggregators and online chats - to call attention to conversations and points of view that we hope will help shed new light on the nature of our interconnected world.

This is precisely what the FAST early warning project at Swisspeace attempted to do. FAST drew on “Local Information Networks” (LINs) of field monitors to code event-data as reported by the local news media. These would then be aggregated and visualized as a time series to determine whether any patterns of conflict escalation could be identified. The process, however, was tedious and hierarchical. Field monitors were not included in the analysis (which was done only in Bern, Switzerland), nor were they included in galvanazing response or even formulating response options.

Long-distance expertise and “analytical capacity alone will never be sufficient for generating effective response,”  since “to have significance operationally, analysis cannot simply be factual but also has to address the issue of perception (e.g., perceived needs, values and symbols); Indeed, prevent[ing] violent conflict requires not merely identifying causes and testing policy instruments but building a political movement” since “the framework for response is inherently political, and the task of advocacy for such response cannot be separated from the analytical tasks of warning” (6).  These form part of the lessons recently learned in the field of conflict early warning.

Global Voices is a far more effective local information and response network than FAST ever was. FAST’s organizational structure was hierarchical, compared to the decentralized nature of the Global Voices network. Bloggers at Global Voices are directly and actively linked to local social and political networks. They have their ears to the ground. They are some of the first to know when “Something is not right,” as Kenyan blogger Daudi remarked on the morning December 30th, 2007 in Nairobi. As more of the irregularities of the voting surfaced, bloggers quickly found themselves as citizen reporters, using twitter, photoblogging and other tools to document and respond to the escalating violence. Ethan Zuckerman writes,

Daudi argues that Kenya was especially prepared to cover the situation due to the richness and maturity of the blogosphere. There are at least 800 Kenyan bloggers, who are both fiercely independent and tightly linked together. “If you build a new Kenyan blog, if you put it into the webring, you’ll have a thousand viewers the first day.” Many of these bloggers were anxious to cover the elections. Daudi tells us he was out on the streets at 6am, photographing lines and polling places; other bloggers were out at 3am. Some bloggers were actually standing for election, others were embedded with foreign diplomats, visiting polling sites as election monitors.

FAST’s field monitors were limited in the technologies there were provided with. Bloggers, on the contrary, make use of all social media and Web 2.0 tools available. They are the new citizen field monitors. Unlike the local information networks at FAST and other conventional conflict early warning systems, they are not paid informants. They volunteer their time because they are dedicated to a more  transparent and democratic society. They are engaged and have a direct stake in peace. Why have we in the conflict prevention community not paid more attention to the rich information these bloggers provide? Why are we not subscribing to Global Voices? Why are we not using our sophisticated natural language parsers to quantity subtle changes in bloggers’ opinions and perceptions in real time?

The answer? Because the conflict early warning field is still in the middle ages when it comes to the use of emerging information communication technologies. A comprehensive OECD report (PDF) on existing operational early warning systems concluded in May 2008 that “most inter-governmental and non-governmental systems [...] have not gone beyond the use of email and websites for dissemination, and communication technology for data collection.”

In addition, as the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) recently reported in a “Review of Conflict Prediction Models and Systems,” one the most significant findings from the study is that a “small pool of [academic] experts dominate the field.” Both these factors are antithetical to the observation made by Rupesinghe exactly 20 years ago (!) vis-a-vis conflict early warning and response systems: “a democratic flow of information is the first condition for a democratic and open system of warning and resolution.” Stress on democratic and flow. It is high time we in the humanitarian community pay more attention to Global Voices.

The following is a recent email exchange on conflict early warning and response. Please note that the views expressed below in no way reflect the opinions of the organizations we work with unless otherwise specified.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: <MICHAEL K>
Date: Mon, May 26, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: FW: food for thought

Hi Patrick — pleased to meet you, first of all. For what it’s worth, and
not having read all of the links below, much like your plea for 80% of time
analysing, the EW problem is largely one of response — to quote Tjip
Walker at USAID — we need fire inspectors (and fire brigades for when our
inspections fail), and we need people looking at the processes around how
we build all kinds of different buildings .. extending the fire analogy.
To further complicate this, response to violence, armed violent conflict,
and fragility tends to be more politically controversial than responding to
health pandemics or even a humanitarian crisis (or fires). The duty of
care is well accepted in these latter contexts whereas R2P and the duty to
prevent is in no way taken seriously when we think about and act on our
“duties beyond borders”. In extremis seems to be “their” problem; and we
don’t even do exante assessments so we “do no harm” effectively where we
are working. How do we get response? Perhaps by by being actor specific
and timely. Donor government instruments have effect over different time
horizons as the UK PM Strategy UNit project on countries at risk of
instability showed. Tackling the structural is the biggest challenge
because no one politician will reap any political gain. Look at climate
change. ICG has had some success — their model is an advocacy one: tie
solid qualitative (highly subjective and non-comparable) assessments to
letterhead that is beyond reproach: I am not clear though how ICG would
fare if assessed in relation to the response their reports elicit. Maybe
advocacy, and the incredible force that millions of blogs represents, is
going to generate response, but I am not sure that it will be enough to
elicit behavioral change. The quote In DC’s original message below on
celebrity homes is telling.

Some thinking generated through interaction with Michael and David, and
many others, over the past several years is attached. The demise of FAST
is, in my view, a real blow to the collective nascent capability we had in
this area only two years ago. I am trying to keep work on EW-ER alive at
the DAC. In fact David Nyheim who used to lead FEWER has written a per we
will be discussing next week. I attach his critique which he contributed
to the OSER workshop.

I was in contact with the ICT4Peace initiative at the UN back in
September/October on some of this, but have been unable to follow up.

Michael, just thought I would mention that Ambassador Wolpe was up here
last week, and I was interested to hear about the project you are working
on with him. Can African leaders be expected to identify the ways we can
engage so they can live up to their duty to prevent?

For my part, things here are really at rock-bottom. It is quite
distressing.

- Michael

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Patrick Meier <patrick.meier@tufts.edu>
Date: Mon, May 26, 2008 at 1:08 PM
Subject: Re: FW: food for thought

Hello Michael,

Thanks for your insightful reply.

Yes, I know Tjip and do agree that the problem is largely one of response. Michael knows I’ve been arguing this for years. As you’ll note from my latest blog entry, I conclude with the following: “Of course, like any early warning initiative, the link to early response will dictate the ultimate success or failure of this project.”

Having worked on dozens of early projects with FAST, CEWARN, ECOWARN, MARAC, OSCE, EnvSec, ICG, HEWS, WFP, UNDP, UNEP, UNECE, NATO, USAID, GPPAC, IFES, Fund for Peace, the EC and the EU over the years, I can certainly attest to response being the main problem. I recently presented this paper on “New Strategies for Early Response: Insights from Complexity Science” which clearly identifies response as the problem and why FAST and CEWARN are particularly unsuccessful. This is why I have been calling for alternative approaches to early warning/response for several years now and am working on a deliverable for Harvard that addresses the potential of community-based, or people-centered approaches. I was in DC just last week to present on the topic at a USIP panel:

http://www.usip.org/events/2008/0521_conflict_prevention.html

Exactly, I recently carried out a comprehensive study on the challenges of early response at the UN with my colleague Susanna Campbell. The study, “Deciding to Prevent Violent Conflict at the UN: Decision-Making and Early Warning,” included numerous interviews with policy / decision-makers. Our findings reveal that decision-makers across the UN do not draw on the analysis of formal conflict early warning systems. Conventional early warning systems are used for the purposes of lobbying and advocacy, but these should not be mistaken for operational response. The study is available at:

http://conflict-reduction.org/meier/Decision%20Making.pdf

Thanks for the attachments, I am particularly familiar Michael and both David’s work. As for the demise of FAST, to be honest, I’m not particularly surprised. I’ve known the FAST team (Heinz Krummenacher, Susanne Schmeidl, Albrecht Schnabel, etc)for almost 8 years now and my concern throughout was that FAST did not take the initiative to measure any impact they were having. They were therefore unable to demonstrate any success. Moreover, FAST had some serious methodological issues–see my paper on Early Response above for a detailed critique. CEWARN is in a similar situation. Neither initiatives are actual conflict early warning systems, they are more geared towards monitoring conflict, and, as we agree, that is not the challenge. Response is.

On ICT4Peace, I’m in regular contact with Sanjana, although his focus is not conflict early warning per se, but rather the use of technology for mediation.

I don’t feel that the field of early warning is at rock-bottom. My perspective is that we are finally coming to terms with the fact that much of the early warning systems out there have little to no impact. This is finally leading to innovative and promising initiatives. Early warning projects that take an alternative, bottom-up approach, are likely to have more of an impact e.g., the early warning/response projects out of Kyrgyzstan and Timor-Leste (the latter of which I am working on).

For more reflections on early warning by several experts in the field, see the regular updates and email exchanges posted on my other blog:

http://earlywarning.wordpress.com

Thanks again for your email.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: <MICHAEL K>
Date: Mon, May 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM
Subject: Re: FW: food for thought

Hi — thanks for this response. The rock bottom comment is in reference to
the challenges that exist within my organisation. I have come to terms
with the political nature of response (let alone effective response) by
donor agencies. Where I am stuck is how to move forward. As a policy
analyst it is the lack of space for decisions formed on the base of
evidence that is disconcerting, along with the unwillingness at the
political level to do things based on evidence unless it is expedient.
Regarding FAST, has any of the impact assessment work you refer to been
done for ICG? Please keep me in the loop on your work, and I will do
likewise. Regards, - Michael
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: David Carment <dcarment@ccs.carleton.ca>
Date: Mon, May 26, 2008 at 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: FW: food for thought

Let me throw in my two cents for what its worth

I don’t see the problem as either warning or response; but integrating analysis into decision making processes that are need specific, relevant and costed. Its rarely the case that warning is deficient and little can be done.

The issue is having a handle on what the end user is capable of doing. That is what I think is a stake and that is why our project took the direction it did; deliberately so. The key impediments at the government level are those who feel threatened by such an approach namely: middle managers and central HQ bureaucrats.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Patrick Meier <patrick.meier@tufts.edu>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2008 at 12:04 AM
Subject: Re: FW: food for thought

Dear David and Michael,

Many thanks for your replies. May I have your permission to place our email exchange on the conflict early warning blog? Chic Dambach, John Packer, Michael Lund and I are having a similar discussion via email and they’ve just given me the green light to post our exchange on the blog so more of us can be involved in sharing our thoughts and experience.

On the political nature of response raised by Michael:

As Alex de Waal writes, conventional early warning systems tend to depoliticize a crisis by translating political problems into a technological challenge of monitoring and responding to changes in indicators and baselines. However, the local human factor—perceptions, needs and interests—is significant for early warning. Indeed, as Rubin argues, long-distance expertise and “analytical capacity alone will never be sufficient for generating effective response,” since “to have significance operationally, analysis cannot simply be factual but also has to address the issue of perception (e.g., perceived needs, values and symbols).” Rubin adds that “prevent[ing] violent conflict requires not merely identifying causes and testing policy instruments but building a political movement” since “the framework for response is inherently political, and the task of advocacy for such response cannot be separated from the analytical tasks of warning.”

In my opinion conflict early warning/response systems that are institutionalized cannot work since bureaucratic and political processes resist the type of tactical, operational response that early warning/response entails. Conventional conflict early warning/response systems segregate those who warn from those meant to be warned. So when does early warning/response work? When those doing the warning are the same as those being warned. The way forward, in my opinion, is to empower local communities facing violence to get out of harm’s way, i.e., emphasize training in preparedness and contingency planning. We would find it folly if the disaster early warning/response community focused only on prediction of hurricanes or earthquakes without any thought on training communities in preparedness and contingency planning measures. Otherwise, we’ll be the firefighters forever and always reacting as opposed to preventing. Why not empower local communities, by definition the first-responders, directly and build on existing local capacities so they can be their own firefighters and manage their security environment–especially since we have a track record of not intervening in time?

On ICG and measuring impact, when I spoke with Nick Grono a while back he mentioned that ICG would track changes in legislation in various countries where the group would advocate for such changes. This is one way they try and assess what impact their work may be having. However, since we are on the topic of ICG, we should note that Fred Cuny meant for ICG to have to integrated components, analysis/lobbying *and* operational response. Unfortunately, he disappeared in Chechnya before he could make this happen.

On the problem being the integration of analysis into decision-making processes raised by David,

I very much agree that the issue is having a handle on what the end user is capable of doing. In my opinion, political and bureaucratic processes mean that end users working within state institutions are highly constrained. I suspect that even if analysis were integrated in decision-making processes, recommendations could always be trumped by political motives. Take for example the use of the sovereignty card, most recently played by the military regime in Myanmar. The international community was in effect powerless, not willing to intervene despite all the bravado about R2P. I completely agree that decision-making processes should be draw on evidence-based analysis, but I’m still worried that political forces can all too easily dismiss these.

Thanks again for this fruitful exchange.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: David Carment <dcarment@ccs.carleton.ca>
Date: Tue, May 27, 2008 at 7:05 AM
Subject: Re: FW: food for thought

I have no problem with this and that as long as you provide a link to our revamped website in which we tackle these issues.

see:
www.carleton.ca/cifp

Of course politics has the final say - but then who are we and what is our goal? Having worked with FEWER which became a victim of political machinations and then again with our own government departments I can tell you that independence is a virtue but also a curse.

We made it our goal to provide the best possible capability for decision makers to allocate resources according to costed options. We even went so far as to develop a framework for informing relevance and impact (see the working paper on the website) laying out a procedure on working with desk officers and integrating their work into ours.

Ultimately neither you nor I can influence the political choices that governments make - but at least we can determine if these choices are well informed and likely to be effective. Our job is to be OTOH independent and critical while at the same time more informed than those making the decisions. This is difficult without working with the desk officer.

As an academic if I had to choose between pursuing peer reviewed research or compromising the analysis for political reasons and obtaining full support for the project I’d choose the former every time. I can tell you that our gov did not appreciate what we had to say about Ghana and Pakistan (ODG reports on website ) largely for political reasons and shut down further analysis of these two countries. Whereas interest in our Latin America studies and handbook was much stronger and supported within government - in fact we worked with desk officers in the production of these reports and put people in the field through their support.

The donors have two agendas: one is to make sure they are “in the game” by promoting and supporting research like ours. They can bring this to the table eg the OECD DAC and this gives them influence and some bragging rights especially if their allies like it (see our handbook on the site designed for this purpose).

OTOH they do not want to to be held to an independent analysis - even if it reflects their own input.

So what do we end up with? A plethora of duplicating initiatives globally - some of which are direct copies of others (gee take a look at the Brookings rankings and ask how is it possible that ours and theirs could be so similar - is it because Susan Rice was provided with our stuff and attended a workshop on our work?) while at the same time providing inconsistent and unfocused support for independent research.

We knew all these problems would arise before we went into our project some 4 years ago and our briefs, handbooks, concept papers and full country analyses are designed to tackle these issues. Still we were not prepared for the bitter rivalries that exist across departments within government that inhibited their willingness to work together in the design and support of a single capability.

The purpose of this post is to share a recent email exchange I initiated on the topic of conflict early warning and response.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Chic <chic@allianceforpeacebuilding.org>
Date: Sat, May 24, 2008 at 5:06 PM
Subject: RE: conflict early warning & forecasting
From my perspective, our prediction capability is very primitive, and that choosing a place to implement a violence prevention project is very much a guessing game.

I don’t believe in waiting for the predictive capacity to improve before taking action. Going to work in Guinea-Bissau was the right thing to do, and I believe the same about our project in Kyrgyzstan. However, in the long term, the ability to generate support for preventive work will be enhanced significantly if we can improve our ability to accurately predict where violence is most apt to happen. Furthermore, we can more effectively target limited resources where they are needed most if our prediction capacities improve.

There is a project underway at Brookings that has tremendous potential. I’m at home today and don’t have the names of the people doing it, but they showed me their model a few months ago, and it is very impressive.

As you know, there is more attention on violence prevention than ever before. That is a tremendously important development. However, it could lose credibility and support if we don’t improve our analytical skills as well as our application of peacebuilding skills.

Our top priority is to generate support for prevention projects, without waiting for better information, but I would love to see the academic and research community develop this capacity. Google and others could be very helpful.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: John Packer <jpacker@hri.ca>
Date: Sat, May 24, 2008 at 6:09 PM
Subject: RE: conflict early warning & forecasting
Dear Chic and Patrick et al.,

Sorry to jump in, but to be clear: the problem is NOT early warning. This is nonsense. Did we not know what was going to happen in Rwanda? Could we not see the risks across Eastern Europe in the light of X-Yugoslavia? We read social behavior ALL THE TIME in our daily lives, in personal, social, corporate and other relations and we make calculations on which we rely (cf. anything from personal health care, the way we look after our children and plan their educations, and the way we invest economic resources including in the stock markets). As always, the problem is simply in EARLY and APPROPRIATE ACTION!

This is why I immediately share Chic’s observation that IPPP jumping into G-B made perfect sense AFTER a reasonable scan of the situation and some comparisons about relative chances of success, resource implications etc. Sensible engagement of knowledgeable people (like Michael, David Carment and Ben) was obviously useful, relatively cheap and fairly easily done (it was not like sending some one to the moon!). Taking on Tibet would have been stupid, as would have been some engagement with indigenous peoples in Canada - not that either situation is without risks of conflict or without merits in terms of human rights concerns and humanitarian values. But if we’re interested in addressing and preventing/curtailing/resolving relative risks of mass violence, then G-B was a pretty good case to select - perhaps not mathematically perfect, but pretty darn reasonable! And, importantly, it matched your capacities (see Mary Anderson’s cautions).

I do agree we need to improve our analytical skills, but this is not a matter of mathematics: the CAUSES for mass violence are pretty well known, certainly in terms of the relative risks.

MUCH more important is to develop the needed SKILLS for peacebuilding and to have LOTS and LOTS of people capable and actually engaged in such work. I am forever amazed at how juvenile or simply absent are these skills, even amongst the purported (and declared and congratulated) “peace-makers”.

Just to take one example in which I am now engaged: Who thinks Kirkuk (the mixed Iraqi city at the centre of the northern oil industry) is NOT a risk of violence for the city, province, country and region? You’d have to be plain stupid not to see it. Indeed, it’s the well-known possible tinder-box. But more than FIVE YEARS after the Iraq invasion, who has actually been doing anything - at all, much less something sensible and sustained? Answer: pretty much NO ONE!!!! About ten days ago, I facilitated one of the rare consultations among (exclusively!) Kirkuki local authorities, and we had a very good meeting with surprising consensus on most issues (the problem is absence of confidence due to recent bad experiences, despite the fact all these people grew up together, relatively live together, speak each other’s languages, have inter-marriages, etc. etc.). From an issue-based analysis, their problems are RESOLVABLE! They are “entitled to $1 Billion which was not spent from the Iraqi budget” but they’re unable to spend it due to insecurity and virtual absence of governance. The problem is partly in outside interferences (but that’s political reality): that’s a “herding cats” problem. The greater problem is the Kirkukis’ own lack of know-how in terms of their own governance - lack of simple/pure knowledge about alternative arrangements and about processes … absence of experience and the confidence which comes with it. ALMOST NO ONE IS HELPING THEM! And, frankly, not a lot of people really know HOW to help them! In their ignorance, many “helpers” are avoiding action, controlling the space (so keeping others out) and actually contributing to a worsening of the situation.

In sum, there is NO PROBLEM OF EARLY WARNING!

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Patrick Meier <patrick.meier@tufts.edu>
Date: Sat, May 24, 2008 at 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: conflict early warning & forecasting

Dear Chic and John,

Many thanks for your replies.

I believe Lawrence is working with Joshua Epstein at Brookings on early warning models using agent-based modeling. Am I right Lawrence?

I tend to agree that early warning is not the problem. Even if highly reliable conflict forecasting systems existed, I doubt they would lead to effective and timely response. This is because policy makers do not draw on formal conflict early warning systems in the decision-making process. See this paper by Susanna Campbell and myself for supporting arguments/evidence. My main concerns with forecasting socio-political events stem (most recently) from the graduate course on complex systems I took at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. Even if we had timely, continuous, reliable and geo-referenced data, social systems still remain complex and predicting their behavior, in my opinion, is not possible–at least using econometrics. The two sources I most often draw on to support my perspective are:

Nassim Taleb (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. (Random House).

Charles Doran (1999). “Why Forecasts Fail: The Limits and Potential of Forecasting in International Relations and Economics.” International Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, Prospects for International Relations: Conjectures about the Next Millennium (Summer, 1999), pp. 11-41

One of the most telling tests of how forecasting methods fare in the real world was run by Spyros Makridakis, “who spent part of his career managing competitions between forecasters who practice a ’scientific method’ called econometrics […]. Simply put, he made people forecast in real life and then he judged their accuracy” (1). This led to the following lamentable conclusion “statistically sophisticated or complex methods do not provide more accurate forecasts than simpler ones” (2). And so, despite the fact that “billions of dollars have been invested in developing sophisticated data banks and early warnings, we have to note that even the most expensive systems have shown a striking inability to forecast political events,” not to mention galvanize any preventive measures (Rupesinghe 1988).

Other empirical studies demonstrate that experts, i.e., us (and our sophisticated systems and methodologies) are only marginally better than novices in our ability to accurately forecast political and economic events. Furthermore, these studies show that neither group’s forecasts are much better than random guessing. Of greater concern still is the empirical observation that experts nevertheless remain consistently overconfident of the accuracy of their own forecasts. This is compared to novices who tend to be more conservative vis-à-vis their forecasting abilities although they are equally (in)effective when it comes to accuracy. In addition, another study recently concluded that “out of close to a million papers published in politics, finance, and economics, there have only been a small number of checks on the predictive quality of such knowledge” (3)
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Michael Lund <mslund@verizon.net>
Date: Sat, May 24, 2008 at 8:10 PM
Subject: RE: conflict early warning & forecasting

I think John puts his finger on the much larger problem. Also, notwithstanding the need to evoke some motivation to act by major countries, we need to be careful that we don’t paint ourselves in a corner by defining the problem we seek to avoid simply as particular moments when there is an outbreak of major violence leading to genocide or civil war. The overall rate of major armed conflicts has been in decline since the mid-1990’s, and the preceding amount was due in great part to the breakup of the Soviet system. I am wondering if the day for such major internal wars is largely over, for leaders’ strategies and pressure on them from international actors may be adjusting behavior to avoid major confrontations. Also, outmigration and remittances as a result of increased globalization are keeping many countries away from ever reaching the brink.

The more serious problem may be a creeping societal degeneration in the poorest countries where the continuing lack of effective political processes and government are unable to avoid eventual state failure and chronically low development persists. Violence may occur but it is not necessarily going to be on a Rwanda-type scale. Bangladesh for instance.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: John Packer <jpacker@hri.ca>
Date: Sun, May 25, 2008 at 9:55 PM
Subject: RE: conflict early warning & forecasting
Dear Michael, Chic, Patrick et al.,

I wholly agree with Michael. Indeed, I already think we’re playing into the doubters’ hands by accepting that we need better predictive capacities. Poppy cock! (And thanks Patrick for the supporting references and evidence.)

My point is that we’re basically quite capable of predicting the principal RISKS of violence creation and we also know what works generally in addressing them (i.a. cf. 60+ years of peace, stability and prosperity among NATO members).

As a matter of RISK, surely it is better to act to prevent what MIGHT occur even if we’re not certain, rather than to wait and see until it’s too late… especially when we KNOW the risks are mounting. For example, we know when our car is running a long time without a change of oil or on the same tires that we should not RISK non-attendance and so WE ACT to take care (change the oil and tires etc.). Indeed, it would be illogical to wait or carry on since we also know that the costs of the risk mount all the time … even towards catastrophic! I believe social science and plain old human experience have long taught us the risks associated with various kinds of socio-political illnesses and problems, and we avoid or withhold acting at our peril … with the prospective costs of the associated risks mounting all the time.

But separate from this is an entirely more constructive approach: instead of just thinking about how we can avoid our children becoming drug-dealers and delinquents, we actually take steps and invest in them becoming good citizens with self-esteem, creative opportunities and productive engagements. In other words, the preventive measures to avoid our children going astray are in fact to develop their positive potentials! The same goes for societies. Simply, it’s not just a matter or motivation of preventing violence that should merit our investments in building societies, but it’s the inherent value of creating peaceful, stable, creative and prosperous societies - of pursuing the civilizational capacity of our species (in global terms). It so happens that this IS also effective violence prevention (leaving aside some pathologies). So we do not need to wait for risks of violence to mount BEFORE we act to build peace. That’s just silly. Regrettably, it seems to be what we’ve been doing - and why we’re always so darn reactive and late and, therefore, facing poorer chances of success and often being taken over by “crisis managers” and frankly the military.

Michael is right hat the actual trend of violence is no longer in the direction of wars (in the classical sense, now fairly rare) or even civil wars, but more and more problems of disintegration and so-called failed and failing states. Waiting is especially a poor course of action vis-a-vis such situations or risks, because they are quite difficult to take hold of later (see Somalia). So such a course is also silly.

Chic, I would argue that, especially given the pausity of resources, we are very effective in our preventive action - when we engage. In CEE, I would argue the HCNM was/is about 100% successful: not a single case in which he has been involved has erupted into mass violence and only Macedonia deteriorated (and I argue we avoided civil war BECAUSE of the HCNM’s involvement). I would go further to say the same for efforts generally across the OSCE (with the exception of Chechnya… and Turlish Kurdistan, although arguments can also be made in that situation). And all this for very little money, comparatively speaking.

So I am dumb-founded at WHY there isn’t broad and abundant support - even enthusiasm - for more such institutions and engagements. What are we waiting for? Indeed, I would suggest the burden of proof should now be reversed and the doubters should prove that it is NOT worth the value of investing to so address the risks (even if small).

Chic, if you/they need arguments in terms of “interests”, how about mentioning Kabul, Kandahar, Kirkuk and Fallujah (and perhaps say “oil!” … or, more effectively, “gas prices!”). Without getting into the specificities of the cases (and there are many), just think of the social, political and ECONOMIC costs of these conflicts (now $2 TRILLION for Iraq alone, according to Joe Stiglitz).

Yes, great we’ve got Milt doing a fabulous service: Milt, you’re surely going to heaven! But surely that’s absurd … one modest retired American businessman backing an initiative for a whole country?! Problem is we only seem to have one Milt - and, very regrettably, he just ain’t rich enough!!!! Still, aside from the evident value of Milt’s support for the G-B people, the greater utility is in the demonstration effect: if MILT can do this with a few experts, why on earth can’t the Governments of the world (or even a few) get together to back seriously such work in various obvious places?

One problem, I honestly fear, is that IF a number of Govts actually do come forward (or if Soros, Gates or someone were to offer big money), in truth we do NOT have many qualified people really available to do the work. Simply, we’ve never invested in it and so we might well fail due to all the problems of un-qualified people (and perhaps adventurers) running hither and thither in willy-nilly “actions” leading to nothing or worse (again, see Mary Anderson).

So, Lawrence, if you’re reading this, we need to build institutional capacities - tools, skills, experience and confidence! When the call comes, we need to be able to succeed.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Lawrence Woocher <lwoocher@usip.org>
Date: Fri, May 30, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: conflict early warning & forecasting

All,

From Tapio Kanninen:

Dear Patrick and all,

Thank you for this question and I give now some answers, comments and suggestions from a UN perspective.

1. In preparing the UN Secretary-General’s 2001 report on the Prevention of Armed Conflict we asked the Divisions of the Department of Political Affairs to give us examples of successful conflict prevention cases. A number of them were received. However, it was later decided that we cannot really use them in the report as many Governments would not like any public mentioning about the UN involvement - they would like to show that they were the main agents for solving the conflict/tension/crisis. So the report did not really mention successful cases but in a very vague fashion if I recall correctly. Similarly, the article we wrote together with Chetan Kumar, UNDPs point man for prevention, was also mainly describing the processes and not successful cases.

2. As you and others are pointing out there are furthermore methodological difficulties in proving who was the father of any good outcome in a given country: early warning/early action or just independent external or internal developments bound to happen or a mixture of both.

3. What I propose is that you might approach the Policy Planning Unit of DPA and UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery and see whether the NGO community and the UN system could work together to prepare a good study on the matter which could be used for funding both NGO projects and appropriate project funding in the UN system. I am sending this e-mail - as a kind of “early warning” - to Chris Coleman who is returning from the SG’s Office to head the Policy and Planning and Mediation Support Unit in DPA; Chetan Kumar was already in your original list of addressees.

Finally, after 29 years at the UN I am moving both out and on in September and will be part of the NGO community. I will be involved in the early warning and prevention field but at the different level. One of the jobs I am doing is to be a project coordinator in the Club of Rome project on establishing a political early warning system to address global and regional threats (UNU and Ashgate article on the related subject is attached).

Maybe the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth -report of 1972 is a successful case of early warning. The details have not been correct (and were never meant to be exact projections) but the overall trends and their interactions are becoming more and more close to the reality in the world as we witness it at the moment. The future of early warning might indeed be in showing the interactions of various factors - and often we need computer models to show these complex relations (and the models are also becoming very sophisticated these days). I am copying this to Peter Brecke (Georgia Tech) who was our consultant in ORCI times in the UN Secretariat on information systems and who is a specialist on global models. The food crisis is a good example of this interrelationship between economy, environment, population, technology, markets, trade etc and conflict which might show up as food riots affecting the political stability of a country and region.

I have been quite impressed by the work of NGO community in early warning field (FAST, FEWER etc and their contribution e.g. to CEWARN) and I am using your work as one justification for this global monitoring project as described in the article. (I believe Patrick you already gave some comments on the article but can your resend them; I welcome comments from others as well).

Best regards Tapio

Tapio Kanninen
Department of Political Affairs
Room: S-3780A
United Nations,
New York, N.Y. 10017
(212) 963-5118 (voice)
(212) 963-5065 (fax)
kanninen@un.org

From: Everett M. Ressler

1. On the basis of experience supporting global monitoring and stimulating early actions both within UNICEF and through collective inter-agency processes, we share the notion that a critical link between early warning and early action is the decision making processes.
2. We have drawn up a brief paper summarizing “lessons learned” on the linkages between early warning and early action which is available through the IASC Secretariat in Geneva. These conclusions are drawn from the experience of humanitarian agencies working together as the IASC SWG (Sub-Working Group on Early Warning and Contingency Planning) continues to collaborate in putting in place systems and facilitating the practice of early warning, preparedness and contingency planning.
3. As an observation, most processes related to sensitive socio-political/conflict issues, related both to preparedness and preventive action, remain internal processes within agencies.
4. Our experience working at the global level suggests that both the processes of early warning and stimulation of action, particularly related to preparedness for humanitarian support, are rather robust. Unfortunately, preventive action is often more difficult and complex than response.
5. Over the past seven years the SWG, as a collective inter-agency effort, has stimulated and supported early action in many threatening conflict situations, demonstrating repeatedly that early warning can stimulate early action.

Everett M. Ressler
Chief, Early Warning and Preparedness Unit UNICEF Emergency Services
Co-Chair, IASC SWG on Early Warning and Contingency Planning

From Lars Bromley:

I know less than I should in this area but am thinking a conversation with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network might be in order. In particular, did their crop models, or those of their colleagues, identify areas of unrest recently, such is Haiti, related to to food pricing and availability? The absence of food is likely a core driver of conflict, and FEWS has been working on such issues for quite some time. Apologies if this is already covered in the blog or somewhere linked to it.

In my geospatial work we’ve toyed with using high-res satellite imagery to document troop build ups in Burma especially, and to a lesser extent in Darfur, and a couple other areas as well. This relies on local reporting that allows us to verify and quantify troop presence / increases. However, its obviously problematic, expensive, and very hit-or-miss, and in general we’ve only tried it where conflict is already ongoing and we want to know whether specific towns might be under threat. The main problem is we need imagery very quickly to provide any useful info, which requires us to schedule multiple satellites, thus costing almost $10K, and we might not get info in time. Even when we received the info in time, all we can say is ‘more troops and tanks are indeed present’ or something like that.

The only other thing I know in this area is related to the Political Instability Task Force and the Brookings Civil Violence, both of which are rather old at this point. I flirted with them in my graduate days but nothing beyond that.

Best,

Lars

Lars Bromley
Project Director
American Association for
the Advancement of Science
http://shr.aaas.org/geotech

From Emmanuel Bombande:

As you are aware, in West Africa, WANEP and ECOWAS have finally launched ECOWARN, the mechanism for conflict prevention in which WANEP is a Civil Society lead agency in mobilization CSO for data collection and analysis. Rather than talk about success as open ended, I prefer to be more concrete with one example on the ground that suggest to us in West Africa that EW is contributing significantly in shifting the mind-set on conflict handling with emphasis on prevention. The Early Warning Mechanism is integral to this.

In May 2007, rioting spread out in Guinea. Unlike like previous disturbances, the Early Warning mechanism was able to synthesize where exactly was the source of grievances. The President of Guinea had insisted that he could manage internal political revolt because the opposition fomented those disturbances. The analysis on the ground from data accumulated over a period pointed rather to growing social discontent around salaries, price increases etc. A cultural underpinning showed how workers particularly felt humiliated that their salaries could no longer pay for a bag of rice, the main stable food. It was not just about prices but also that within the social setting, the head of family who could not purchase a bag of rice at the end of the month lost social status. Guinean workers on to this count were more prepared to riot and ground the country into total paralysis. These analysis informed the operationalisation of the mechanism at the level of ECOWAS. Rather than convene a summit to discuss the Guinean crisis, ECOWAS sent the Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security more at an informal level without any media focus. The Government of Guinea was engaged with the accumulated information over a period and the social dimension was understood from a new perspective. The Government of Guinea immediately understood why it was important for them to talk with the labour unions.

The Chair of ECOWAS or the President of the Commission engaging directly was interpreted by the Government of Guinea to mean that they were on the spotlight within the framework of the ECOWAS protocols. By giving them an option to choose who could help facilitate dialogue with the Unions, the Govt. of Guinea preferred General Babangida-Former Head of State of Nigeria. The process of dialogue went well. The Government was changed and a new Prime Minister appointed. The situation in Guinea in 2007 was well managed. However, I do not suggest that Guinea is entirely out of the woods. What is happening is that there is trust to work with the Government of Guinea and the engagement is continuous leading to elections later this year. The entry point was social even if the action for change somewhat was political and yet you could not discuss the politics including the resignation of the entire government as the way forward initially. The point is, the Early Warning Mechanism suggested what form of appropriate response based on where the real problem was. In the past, the response could have further exacerbated the problem. Should I describe this as an early warning success? I prefer to describe EW as providing opportunity for more systematic engagement that defines best practice for response.

Today throughout West Africa, every issue in each of the 15 countries finds space in the ECOWARN database. Summary highlights and bulletins are sent out from the ECOWAS Commission every day. It might be too early yet but it appears this is the best way to go. I dare say that the rot in Zimbabwe; so embarrassing cannot happen in West Africa today because of the new political will to engage in advance to prevent. Thanks to the Early Warning System, issues that could have escalated into full blown crisis such as in Guinea Bissau Bissau are now responded to differently.

I am sure the opportunity will come to be more elaborate on West African experiences. Let me say however that EW is very relevant today in West Africa to the prevention of violent conflicts. Benin and Togo are on the radar screen this week. Benin in the context of local elections where the Parliament has expressed strong disagreements with the President on his role. In Togo, it is around a clandestine group claiming they will stage a coup d’état by 27th April if their demands are not met. In each of these cases, there is ongoing mobilizing including at the level of Civil Society to respond. Next week in Togo, WANEP has convened a meeting of Parliamentarians, Government representatives and Civil Society.

“Early Warning for Violence Prevention”: Project Successes in Encouraging Operational Response Kyrgyzstan

Document available here.

Thank you to Kristel Maasen for sharing this!