Are early warning and response systems prepared for the conflicts of the future? This report from the OECD reviews recent literature on early warning and response to assess their value and their role in the prevention of violent conflict and for peacebuilding. It concludes that early warning and response systems require further support to ensure their future relevance.
Conflict early warning emerged on the international policy agenda after the end of the Cold War, spurred further by the failure to prevent conflict in Rwanda and the Balkans in the 1990s. From the start, conflict early warning was envisaged as distinct from intelligence-based analysis that sought protection of state interests. Initially focused on multi-stakeholder solutions, gender-sensitivity, open source information, and the creation of sustainable peace based on locally-owned solutions, early warning strategies have since been overshadowed by the counter-terrorism tactics implemented by the United States and others in recent years.
Conflict early warning as a field of conflict prevention is today undergoing significant scrutiny. From a donor perspective, the visible impacts of early warning are often seen as meagre. Indeed, at times early warning analyses can provide donor officials with political headaches, by being alarmist or offensive to other governments, or by advocating responses that are not feasible. However, proponents of conflict early warning insist that it contributes to the evidence base of conflict prevention decision making.
The evolution of the conflict early warning and early response fields have been driven by advances made in analytical tools, mechanisms, and processes. As analytical capabilities have improved, they have been integrated into the different early warning and early response protocols. Some findings from a review of the literature on early warning and early response include:
- Qualitative and quantitative tools have enjoyed significant advances—‘good practice’ in early warning analysis is emerging
- Unrealistic recommendations and biased opinions means that “poor early warning” remains a cause of non-response to violent conflict
- Multiplicity of actors and mechanisms makes more likely problems of late, incoherent, fragmented, and confused responses
- More mechanisms/instruments have not translated into better responses—the link between warning and response remains weak
Early warning and early 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, fallout from ongoing wars, fallout from the war on terror, and the increasing criminalisation of conflict. Indeed, the future relevance of the field depends largely on work undertaken now to understand and provide useful analysis on these new emerging threats.
Considering the balance between future security threats and trends, it is apparent that the early warning and response field is currently unprepared for the challenges that it is likely to face over the next decades. To meet these challenges, several steps should be taken:
- Assist in the consolidation of good (quantitative and qualitative) methodological and applied reporting practice for conflict and state fragility analysis
- Consider how early warning systems can promote improved understanding of armed violence dynamics
- Consider the need for a bolstered global early warning and response architecture
- Increase support for regional early warning systems, and third generation systems that address micro-level violence
