Improving the EU’s early warning response systems

The EU should clarify internally that early warning should be a tool to anticipate rather than forecast conflicts, and work through the practical implications of this approach, according to two new Saferworld reports examining how the EU anticipated and responded to crises in Kenya (the 2008 post-election violence) and Kyrgyzstan (2010 crisis).

The European Union (EU) adopted a conflict prevention agenda in 2001 and has shown a lot of interest in early warning systems since. However, putting this into practice to respond effectively has been challenging. “The findings and recommendations of these two reports are very timely,” said Sebastien Babaud, EU Advocacy Coordinator and co-author of the reports.

“With the establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the diplomatic body of the EU, there is a lot of interest in strengthening early warning capacities within the EU and to ensure they are linked to early responses. The next EU financial multiannual framework starting in 2014 also provides another opportunity to learn from these lessons and reconsider how EU actors can become more proactive in tackling the causes of conflicts.”

The case studies, which involved research and interviews in both countries with EU, international, and local actors, focuses on how EU actors analysed context and conflict dynamics and responded to conflict causes and consequences – and tries to learn lessons for the future of EU early warning systems. The reports also address the early warning and conflict prevention roles played by other local, national and international actors.

Despite covering very different contexts, the two case studies present similar findings:

• There is no shared understanding across the EU of what its early warning system is and what its purpose should be.
• Apart from a few ad hoc examples, the EU does not conduct systematic conflict analyses to inform its programming process, public diplomacy or political dialogue.
• Besides the decisive political mobilisation of the EU, a mix of short and long term instruments have been used in both countries to respond to the causes and consequences of the crises, and to prevent the resurgence of conflict.
• Local and national civil society organisations are the actors actually providing a rapid response to mitigate tensions and violence. They also provide a space for dialogue and mediation between clashing communities.  

Based on these findings, specific recommendations include that the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission (EC) put more effort into promoting, supporting and effectively applying conflict analysis methods to inform their programming and political positioning decisions. EU actors should also aim to use long term instruments in a conflict sensitive way more systematically so they can tackle the root causes of conflict more proactively. Lastly, the EU should consider supporting local and national civil society organisations to provide rapid responses more often. This could be a way to prevent violence from spreading further in the short term, and would support the process of building trust between communities and their authorities, a critical aspect of statebuilding, in the longer term.  

The two new case study reports were developed within the framework of the EU-funded Initiative for Peacebuilding - Early Warning. Saferworld is currently working closely with EU actors in Brussels and in-country to work out how some of these recommendations can be put into practice in the framework of specific EU processes.

Read the Kenya case study

Read the Kyrgyzstan case study

Find out more about the Initiative for Peacebuilding early warning project

“The next EU financial multiannual framework starting in 2014 provides another opportunity to learn from these lessons and reconsider how EU actors can become more proactive in tackling the causes of conflicts”

Sebastien Babaud, Saferworld