By Grace Q. Bryant
The Liberia Peacebuilding under the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the weekend has launched an Early Warning and Early Response System in Liberia.
The program which was held at the ECOWAS in Sinkor brought together Government Officials, Local and International partners across the country.
Giving the overview of the program, the Executive Director of Liberia Peacebuilding, Edward Mulbah said that the Early Warning and Early Response System was initially started during the 2011 Elections in Liberia, drawing lessons from USHIHIDI platform of Kenya related to its violent election in 2007.
Executive Director Mulbah explained that the system has gone through series of development processes with support from partners including direct support from the Embassy of Sweden from 2019 to 2021 through ZOA and then currently the United Nations Development Program from 2022 to present.
According to him, the system is a multi- stakeholder initiative intended to prevent and mitigate incidents of different nature occurring in all countries of Liberia to collect and transmit timely and reliable warning information or incidents that threaten the peace to relevant authorities to enable them prepare to take action in sufficient time to prevent the escalation of violence.
“Because we are in Elections year, the system will heavily focus on the 2023 General and Presidential Elections; this system works in tender with the work of the National Centre for the Coordination of Response mechanism (NCCRM),” he noted.
He maintained that the component parts of the system include over 400 recently trained active early warning reporters and regional coordinators deployed in all 15 countries.
“We are worried that this system should not be donor-dependent, rather the Government should take full responsibility to sustain the system through financial investment to cover costs to keep it functional. This system is envisioned to operate even after 2023 Elections,” Director Mulbah urged.
Launching the Early Warning and Response, the Internal Affairs Minister Varney Sirleaf, noted that the government declared conflict Early Warning and Response as a sound policy and a right political move for maintaining peace and security in Liberia.
“Since that time, we have tried to incrementally strengthen our early warning and response capacity with the help of partners; we are exceedingly glad that our conflicts’ early warning system has become decentralized at county, district and some community level,” he added.
He further explained that the system will potentially provide accurate and actionable information in a transparent and sustainable manner to decision makers that help to prevent violence and maintain peace and security across the country.
Minister Sirleaf revealed that the government has worked over the years with partners including UNDP, Embassy of Sweden, ZOA and others to develop the early warning and response infrastructure.
“This system will monitor, track and report on 56 indicators that cover five thematic areas including security, health environment, gender, governance, Human Rights and elections,” he emphasized.
He continued, “I want to appeal to policy makers, relevant government institutions and the public to make the best use of this system because there has been so much investment by our partners and the government to ensure that we sustain our peace and enhance security and promote social cohesion.”He called on media and politicians to be mindful of what they put out there in the public that could potentially undermine peace and stability. “Be mindful of disinformation, misinformation and hate speech that potentially undermine social trust between government and its citizens,” he pleaded.
