Chapter 9: FCE’s Early Warning System and Applicability to Other Countries

The 9th and final chapter of the FCE book on Third Generation Early Warning was co-authored by Kumar Rupesinghe and Tadakazu Kanno. This is an important chapter that seeks to draw on the lessons learned from the Sri Lanka experience to outline how a similar approach might be taken in other countries.

As the authors note, the Third Generation approach is particularly applicable at containing inter-communal violence. It is also very refreshing to read that the authors include a section on the weaknesses of FCE’s EW/ER system. It would be great to see other initiatives do the same.

Rupesinghe and Kanno write that “if there is no will for peace, the FCE-type Early Warning/Early Response cannot work effectively” and that the “cessation of violence is subject to the will of [paramilitary groups].” This is why I have been advocating for a tactical approach to conflict early warning and response; one that leverages the tactics of strategic nonviolent action and digital activism.

The authors also include a helpful section on “Criteria for the Application of FCE EW/ER System.” This section includes pointers on necessary conditions (e.g., inter-communal conflict) and subordinate conditions (e.g., causes of conflict are grievances). Another very helpful section of the chapter outlines how the FCE approach could be applied in specific countries such as Pakistan and Kenya.

In conclusion, Rupesinghe and Kanno write that FCE’s Early Warning/Early Response system “will contribute to saving a number of precious lives in conflict areas.” This is the last sentence of the entire book and a very important one. To be sure, the saving of lives should be the ultimate indicator of success and it is important that we apply rigorous monitoring and evaluation frameworks to assess whether we have any impact on this important indicator.

Applying Earthquake Physics to Conflict Analysis

I’ve long found the analogies between earthquakes and conflicts intriguing. We often talk of geopolitical fault lines, mounting tensions and social stress. “If this sounds at all like the processes at work in the Earth’s crust, where stresses build up slowly to be released in sudden earthquakes … it may be no coincidence” (Buchanan 2001).

To be sure, violent conflict is “often like an earthquake: it’s caused by the slow accumulation of deep and largely unseen pressures beneath the surface of our day-to-day affairs. At some point these pressures release their accumulated energy with catastrophic effect, creating shock waves that pulverize our habitual and often rigid ways of doing things…” (Homer-Dixon 2006).

But are fore shocks and aftershocks in social systems really as discernible as well? Like earthquakes, both inter-state and internal wars actually occur with the same statistical pattern (see my previous blog post on this). Since earthquakes and conflicts are complex systems, they also exhibit emergent features associated with critical states. In sum, “the science of earthquakes […] can help us understand sharp and sudden changes in types of complex systems that aren’t geological–including societies…” (Homer-Dixon 2006).

The Model

To this end, I collaborated with Professor Didier Sornette and Dr. Ryan Woodard from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) to assess whether a mathematical technique developed for earthquake prediction might shed light on conflict dynamics. I presented this study along with our findings at the American Political Science Association (APSA) convention last year (PDF).

This geophysics technique, “superposed epoch analysis,” is used to identify statistical signatures before and after earthquakes. In other words, this technique allows us to discern whether any patterns are discernible in the data during foreshocks and aftershocks.

Earthquake physicists work from global spatial time series data of seismic events to develop models for earthquake prediction. We used a global time series dataset of conflict events generated from newswires over a 15-year period. The graph below explains the “superposed epoch analysis” technique as applied to conflict data.

The curve above represents a time series of conflict events (frequency) over a particular period of time. We select arbitrary threshold, such as “threshold A” denoted by the dotted line. Every peak that crosses this threshold is then “copied” and “pasted” into a new graph. That is, the peak, together with the data points 25 days prior to and following the peak is selected.

The peaks in the new graph are then superimposed and aligned such that the peaks overlap precisely. With “threshold A”, two events cross the threshold, five for “threshold B”. We then vary the thresholds to look for consistent behavior and examine the statistical behavior of the 25 days before and after the “extreme” conflict event.

Results

For this study, we performed the computational technique described above on the conflict data for the US, UK, Afghanistan, Columbia and Iraq.

The foreshock and aftershock behaviors in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be similar. Is this because the conflicts in both countries were the result of external intervention, i.e., invasion by US forces (exogenous shock)?

In the case of Colombia, an internal low intensity and protracted conflict, the statistical behavior of foreshocks and aftershocks are visibly different from those of Iraq and Afghanistan. Do the different statistical behaviors point to specific signature associated with exogenous and endogenous causes of extreme events? Does one set of behavior contrast with another one in the same way that old wars and new wars differ?

Future Research

Are certain extreme events endogenous or exogenous in nature? Can endogenous or exogenous signatures be identified? In other words, are extreme events just part of the fat tail of a power law due to self-organized criticality (endogeneity)? Or is catastrophism in action, extreme events require extreme causes outside the system (exogeneity)?

Another possibility still is that extreme events are the product of both endogenous and exogenous effects. How would this dynamic unfold? To answer these questions, we need to go beyond political science.

The distinction between responses to endogenous and exogenous processes is a fundamental property of physics and is quantified as the fluctuation-dissipation theorem in statistical mechanics. This theory has been successfully applied to social systems (such as books sales) as a way to help understand different classes of causes and effects.

Our goal is to use the same techniques to investigate the questions: Do conflict among actors in social systems display measurable endogenous and exogenous behavior?  If so, can a quantitative signature of precursory (endogenous) behavior be used to help recognize and then reduce growing conflict? The next phase of this research will be to apply the above techniques to the conflict dataset already used to examine the statistical behavior of foreshocks and aftershocks.

Genocide Areas of Concern

The Genocide Intervention Network (GI-NET) recently released it’s end of 2008 summary on Areas of Concern. The report (PDF) describes the analysis performed in early 2008 and updated throughout the year.

Areas of Concern

Darfur, eastern Chad, Central African Republic, eastern DR Congo, Somalia, Iraq, eastern Burma, and Sri Lanka.  Areas that may be added to the Areas of Concern list next year include North Korea, Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, and Afghanistan.

On Radar

The  “radar” list contains areas we are looking at closely but that do not currently constitute Areas of Concern. These include: Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia (Ogaden), Afghanistan, Pakistan (especially Waziristan and Baluchistan),  North Korea, Kashmir, Tibet, Indonesia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Kordofan and South Sudan,  Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Israel-Palestine, Burundi, Kenya, Uygher areas of China (Xinjiang), Colombia, Niger/Mali, Orissa (India) and Northern Uganda.

Abeyance List

Areas of Concern denote countries and territories that are currently experiencing massive violence. Areas where violence subsides for six months or more are placed on “abeyance” if it is appropriate to remain engaged/watchful of these situations until a re-emergence of conflict is less likely. Currently no areas are on abeyance, as we are just finishing the first cycle of the analysis. In our next cycle, areas likely to be placed on abeyance include Central African Republic, and possibly eastern Chad.

Detecting Rumors with Web-based Text Mining System

Robert Kirkpatrick at InSTEDD pointed me to a very interesting public health project out of Japan called BioCaster, an ontology-based text mining system that uses linguistic signals on the Web for the early detection and tracking of infectious disease out-breaks.

“The system continuously analyzes documents reported from over 1,700 RSS feeds, classifies them for topical relevance and plots them onto a Google map using geocoded information. The background knowledge for bridging the gap between layman’s terms and formal coding systems is contained in the freely available BioCaster ontology which includes information in eight languages focused on the epidemiological role of pathogens as well as geographical locations with their latitudes/longitudes. The system consists of four main stages: topic classification, named entity recognition (NER), disease/location detection and event recognition. Higher order event analysis is used to detect more precisely specified warning signals that can then be notified to registered users via email alerts. Evaluation of the system for topic recognition and entity identification is conducted on a gold standard corpus of annotated news articles.”

BioCaster has specific advantages over related initiatives like GPHIN, MedISys, Argus, ProMedMail, EpiSpider and HealthMap. I’ve blogged about these initiatives here and here but BioCaster combines the following functionalities within a single system

1. Text mining techniques such as entity recognition which aim to generalize to previously unseen terms and expressions;
2. Text-level recognition of severity indicators such as international travel or the contamination of blood products;
3. Ontology-based inferencing to fill in the gaps, e.g. between a mentioned pathogen and the unmentioned disease that caused it or between symptoms and diseases;
4. Direct knowledge of term equivalence within and across languages.

The system has been operational since 2006 and offers “an intuitive mapping interface [see above] for the general reader as well as an openly available ontology for community re-use. Future work will focus on extending coverage to new languages and public health threats. A paper on BioCaster is available here.

I’m very interested in this system and would really like to apply the methodology to early detection and tracking of conflict rurmors. See this post for more on early warning and natural language parsing.

A Conversation on Early Warning with Howard Adelman

Professor Howard Adelman kindly shared some interesting insights (via email) in response to (1) Michael Lund’s new chapter on conflict prevention, and (2), my reaction to it (see previous blog entry). In his response, Professor Adelman also drew on a number of my other blog entries, which I greatly appreciate—starting a conversation on early warning was exactly what I was hoping to do with this blog.

What follows are some reactions to Professor Adelman’s email. I’ve chosen to “reply by blog” as opposed to email in order open the conversation to others who might wish to contribute. I want to keep this blog entry at readable length (i.e., under five minutes) and will therefore be biased in selecting the issues I respond to. Professor Adelman is certainly invited to share additional thoughts via the comments section.

Reading the entries on the blog and Michael’s chapter suggested to me that there is  confusion over the relationship between conflict prevention and early warning. […] Early warning not only includes the gathering of data but the analysis of that data to develop strategic options for response but does not include the responses themselves which come under conflict prevention.

Whether early response should be filed under conflict prevention or some other term is perhaps more a question for academics. I do realize the importance of having clear definitions and sharp conceptual frameworks. However, I’m more preoccupied with early response actually happening at all, regardless of which toolbox it belongs to.

Patrick observes that CEWARN’s methodology, like the majority of intergovernmental systems gets rather technical, institutional and bureaucratic very quickly, it is unclear whether he is pointing out to a structural flaw or a propensity because the system has strong governmental links. Though he is correct that, “It is easy to forget the human element of early warning when faced with fancy language such as baselines, trends analysis, structural indicators,” it should be noted that the few early successes of the system did not come from the highly developed technical side but from the very personal reporting side of those individuals gathering information before it was subjected to systematic extrapolations. Nevertheless, the systematic framework allowed the observer to ask the right questions and look for the data that revealed an impending crisis.

In my view, the structural flaw of CEWARN is the system’s strong governmental links. This is why the few early successes of the system did not come from the highly developed technical (or data-driven) side but from the personal reporting side of those individuals gathering information before it was subject to systematic extrapolations and institutional inertia.

I find it particularly telling that CEWARN’s first success story occurred in July 2003, barely a month after the system went operational, which is when I first joined the CEWARN team. None of the institutional or highly technical procedures were in place at the time so when a CEWARN field in monitor called a country coordinator to alert him that an armed group was mobilizing to raid another group’s cattle, the communication of this information to CEWARN was all done ad hoc, right through to the early response. I am skeptical that institutionalizing effective early response is possible. In fact, I see it as an oxymoron. To find out why, please see my ISA paper on new strategies for early response (PDF).

CEWARN and other such systems are intended to involve communities at the grass roots level to sideline the source of violence and initiate processes that will keep them sidelined. Further, the Ushahidi approach involving peer-to-peer, networked communication tools was not that different than the networking design and open information system at the base of the CEWARN system.

I disagree. CEWARN and Ushahidi are hardly similar or comparable, either in design or in operation. CEWARN is not an open information system by any measure—the project’s incident and situation reports are not open to the public. The online CEWARN Reporter is password protected, only the CEWARN team and select government officials have access. In fact, CEWARN’s design is an excellent example of anti-crowdsourcing. CEWARN’s network design remains far more centralized than Ushahidi’s can ever be; not least because the source code of Ushahidi will be made available freely to anyone who wants it. If there is one similarity between the two systems, it has to do with the fact that both projects need to focus far more on operational and tactical early response.

Patrick’s argument is akin to saying that when we see certain kinds of spots on the skin we know the child has measles, so why do we need greater in-depth analysis for detecting patterns of spread or for detecting the disease even before the spots appear on the skin.

Close. Why do we need greater in-depth analysis when this analysis will be sent to a hospital a thousand miles away for further analysis and not result in any response by public health professionals who have no incentive to respond? Why not train the parents directly to deal with the measles instead?

The CEWARN and WANEP systems were deliberately designed to be frugal operations rooted in community-based gather of information and data with the analysis located in the state and the region of the conflict.

Why are we not designing systems rooted in community-based early responses? Why ask communities to code data that is ultimately of limited use to them?

Alex de Waal’s depiction of the documentation provided in Sudan that allowed villagers to evacuate is but one example of one end of the early warning spectrum but does not obviate the need for more developed systems. However, Patrick’s message needs to be heeded: the latter should not be developed at the expense of community-based systems such as GI-NET in Burma using a civilian radio network to enable civilians to receive and send warning information and distress calls.

I would add that more sophisticated systems need to demonstrate cases of operational response (particularly since these systems tend to be expensive to fund). Note that I’m not even raising the bar to successful cases of operational prevention. Just responses, that’s all.

CEWARN reported more than 3,000 conflict events in the first three years of operation but has only responded to a dozen at most. That’s a “success” rate of 0.4%. On the other hand, the system can be assessed using other measures. For example, the project has successfully documented extensive evidence human rights abuses, which has forced governments to acknowledge that a problem exists and to start taking responsibility for that problem.

Recall when the CEWARN team reported its first year of data to government officials in Addis Ababa (you and I were both there, Professor Adelman). The government representatives were so taken aback by the extent of the violence taking place in cross-border regions that they refused to release the country reports (in direct violation of the CEWARN protocol which had been ratified). They eventually did release the reports six months later and by doing so have acknowledged there was a problem, which is a critical first step.

Conflict Early Warning in Central America

I just gave a keynote speech in Guatemala as part of a week-long conference on developing capacity for a regional conflict early warning and response system for Central America. The conference is supported by the European Center for Conflict Prevention (ECCP) and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). The gathering brought together civil society groups from across Central America and South America.

My presentation focused on human early warning systems. But I began the talk with a brief overview of CEWARN’s methodology, which like the majority of intergovernmental systems gets rather technical, institutional and bureaucratic very quickly. It is easy to forget the human element of early warning when faced with fancy language such as baselines, trends analysis, structural indicators, etc. Indeed, it’s easy to forget that today’s sophisticated early warning systems are relatively new mechanical inventions, which begs the question, how did people manage before these systems were available?

The answer is that they managed, they had to. I took up the example of Guatemala and El Salvador during the 1980s. Populations caught in between military operations and rebel activities found ways to survive. Tens of thousand lived undercover, moving only at night, building extensive underground tunnels, growing hidden gardens and carrying out regular drills to practice rapid evacuations. They would set off firecrackers to warn neighboring villages about incoming military fighter jets. These survival stories are not unique to Central America, hundreds of similar stories can be found across Africa and Asia.

Local communities across the world do not have recourse to sophisticated early warning systems, but they survive, by monitoring their own (often less tangible) indicators and by prioritizing preparedness. Surely, the human being is one of nature’s most phenomenal early warning systems, tried and tested by evolution over millions of years. Why forgo this remarkable system completely for more technical, mechanical systems and bureaucratic structures that are not “naturally” designed for early warning and response?

The disaster management community has already recognized the importance of people-centered early warning (as opposed to system-centered, or data-centered). The purpose of people-centered early warning approaches is to empower communities at risk to get out of harm’s way. This empowerment is achieved through preparedness and contingency planning. We often hear about disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation, risk reduction, etc. Why don’t we hear about preparedness in the context of conflict early warning and prevention?

I presented two case studies to outline examples of people-centered conflict early warning/response projects. The first is a new initiative out of Timor-Leste, which specifically focuses on conflict preparedness  at the community level. The project, which I worked on in February, seeks to outline detailed, local contingency plans for early response at the community level. Conflict resolution and mediation skills are integral to carrying out these responses when conflict does escalate. Training in conflict mediation is therefore critical, and even more valuable when linked to specific contingency response measures. The second project I presented is Ushahidi in Kenya and emphasized the novelty of taking a crowdsourcing approach to crisis information by drawing on new information communication technologies.

Insights from Disaster Early Warning

The disaster and conflict early warning communities rarely share lessons learned and best practices. Why? Disasters are qualitatively different than armed conflicts. There are nevertheless clear operational parallels between disaster and conflict early warning systems—from risk assessment and monitoring to analysis, communication and response. Early warning systems generally share the same overarching goal, early detection, early response. Furthermore, over 150 natural disasters have occurred alongside complex political crises in the past seven years alone (UN 2006). This is why the undergraduate, graduate and professionals seminars I have tought since 2005 are entitled: “From Disaster to Conflict Early Warning and Response”.

Understanding how disaster early warning systems work, and in particular their link to response, can provide important insights for bridging the conflict early warning-response gap. What is especially telling is the disaster management community’s focus on mitigation, preparedness and contingency planning. Clearly, forecasting a hurricane is not tantamount to actually preventing the hazard from translating into a disaster. Response measures therefore need to be put in place regardless of the forecast’s accuracy. Moreover, the  discourse on disaster early warning is increasingly shifting towards “people-centered early warning,” the purpose of which is,

“to empower individuals and communities threatened by hazards to act in sufficient time and in an appropriate manner so as to reduce the possibility of personal injury, loss of life, damage to property and the environment, and loss of livelihoods” (UN 2006).

Forecasting conflict is clearly more difficult than forecating environmental hazards such as hurricanes. And our track record is far less impressive than our colleagues’ in the disaster early warning community. This begs the following question: why does our field not take a “people-centered” approach and provide training for conflict mitigation, preparedness and contingency planning? Surely, if the disaster community were to focus exclusively on forecasting, millions would die. We would be shocked at such a decision. And yet, we seem unphased by the fact that our community does not provide even the most limited tactical traning in civilian protection and conflict preparedness. Should we still be suprised that our field continues to struggle in trying to link warning with response?

On Mapping Fragility and Conflict Early Warning

The concept of fragility is gaining traction in the European Commission (EC). Member States and leading international development organizations are also backing the concept. Is the fragility label just another buzz word? Does the concept add value to the field of conflict early warning? How do fragile states compare to “weak states” and “failing states”? Indeed, what is fragility?

I don’t pretend to know the answers to these questions. What is clear to me from participating in recent  EC meetings in Brussels is that the concept of fragility is rather fluid with no standard definition. This makes operationalizing the concept somewhat challenging. Nevertheless, the label does appeal to me for one important reason: the term fragility has its roots in ecology; understanding the later can shed light on the former vis-a-vis fragile states and societies. This explains my surprise when a quick review of the state fragility literature yielded not a single reference to the use of the concept in fields beyond our own.

Fragility conjures notions of complex processes (as opposed to discrete events) weaving dynamic, interconnected networks. Fragile ecosystems exhibit non-linear albeit interactive, emergent behavior. Turning to articles in peer-reviewed science journals would be where I’d start. Take this article on “Ecological Networks and Their Fragility,” published in Nature.

In this Review, we compare ecological networks to non-ecological networks, and consider their similarities, differences and underlying causes. Along with networks of interacting computers, genes or humans, ecological networks display well-defined, similar patterns of organization. On close inspection, ecological networks are unlike other networks. Their assembly follows different rules, and the processes of predation, competition and mutualism constrain them in unique ways. Other networks nonetheless help us understand why ecological ones are special in the constraints that apply to them and how they develop.

Why is the Political Science literature not taking a similar cross-disciplinary approach? Why aren’t we comparing state fragility with fragile ecosystems? These questions go to the heart of the reason why I find the use of fragility as a metaphor an important one for our field. The notion of fragility encourages us to move beyond the monitoring of single events towards underlying complex processes. The view from below is “more messy” unless we take a cross-disciplinary approach.

The following is from a paper I wrote (Networking Early Warning Systems) for ISA 2007. Please see the original paper for all references.

In the past, “discussions with regard to early warning systems have emanated from a concern with the early prediction and reporting of events instead of processes which could lead to social disasters.” Consider an hourglass or sand clock as an illustration of fragility-as-causality.

Grains of sand sifting through the narrowest point of the hourglass represent individual events or natural hazards.  Over time a sand pile starts to form, which represents the evolution of society or the connectedness of a social network. Occasionally, a grain of sand falls on the pile and an avalanche or disaster follows.

Why does the avalanche occur? One might ascribe the cause of the avalanche to one grain of sand, i.e., a single event. On the other hand, a systems approach to fragility analysis would associate the avalanche with the pile’s increasing slope and to the connectedness (or population density)  of the grains constituting the pile since these factors render the structure increasingly vulnerable to falling grains.

Left on its own, the sand pile’s stability, or the social network, becomes increasingly critical or vulnerable.  From this perspective, “all disasters are slow onset when realistically and locally related to conditions of susceptibility.” A hazard event might be rapid-onset, but the disaster, requiring much more than a hazard, is a long-term process, not a one-off event. We must therefore “reduce as much as we can the force of the underlying tectonic stresses in order to lower the risk of synchronous failure—that is, of catastrophic collapse that cascades across boundaries between technological, social and ecological systems.”

Pursuing research on the notion of fragility helps shift the discourse away from monitoring individual events (falling rains of sand) to characterizing the resilience of the state and society. This is why the concept is an important one to include in the policy discourse, even if it will take time for operational frameworks to mature.

Survey on Information Management & Sharing in Crisis Response Situations

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 are professionally familiar with crisis response, either from the field or management perspectives, CMI and IASCI would very much appreciate if you could take a few moments to respond to our questions under the following link:

Online Survey

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

Discussion with David Carment and Michael K

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

“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.”

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.