{"id":7112,"date":"2015-07-28T13:31:30","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T17:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=7112"},"modified":"2016-10-06T15:05:47","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T19:05:47","slug":"wanepwapi-1998-keeping-tensions-from-escalating-into-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2015\/07\/wanepwapi-1998-keeping-tensions-from-escalating-into-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"WANEP\/WAPI, 1998: Keeping Tensions from Escalating into Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Emmanuel<\/a>
Emmanuel Bombande, MA ’02 (front, fourth from right), is flanked by his successor, Chukwuemeka Eze (black jacket), and Kwesi Ahwoi, then Ghana’s interior minister, at the opening of WAPI 2013 at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra. John Katunga Murhula, MA ’05, is on the far left of the photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The news coming out of Burkina Faso worried Emmanuel Bombande<\/strong>, MA \u201902, in late October 2014 as he boarded a flight for Europe. For months, the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) \u2013 led by Bombande as executive director for 11 years \u2013 had been warning that Burkina Faso sat teetering at the edge of chaos. Would the country\u2019s long-serving president try to cling to power by amending the constitution? Or would he respect the term limits placed on his presidency and step down?<\/p>\n

The previous March, a WANEP policy brief had warned of a political crisis leading up to a 2015 presidential election:<\/p>\n

The current political context in Burkina Faso is a cause for concern<\/em> to WANEP and other [civil society organizations] in the region and beyond. Tensions around constitutional amendments and transitions, political intolerance, identity-based politics as well as a lack of institutions for managing grievances [are] evident in the run-up to the elections.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the months went by, the political situation continued to deteriorate. Moderate voices began to say outrageous things. WANEP staff in the country began to fear for their safety. As Bombande traveled to Bruges, Belgium, for a meeting at the United Nations University, his heart remained behind in Africa, where tensions in Burkina Faso were heading toward explosive. He was constantly checking the news.<\/p>\n

\"Emmanuel<\/a>
Emmanuel Bombande, MA ’02, immediate past executive director of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding and one of its founders (Photo by Jon Styer)<\/i><\/small><\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the meeting in Belgium began in the morning, Bombande\u2019s Twitter feed began to confirm his fears. A crowd had gathered at the parliament building in the capital, Ouagadougou. By the first coffee break, the situation had worsened: parliament was in flames and the military appeared to have seized power. \u201cThe whole country was on the brink of total disaster,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

The crisis in Burkina Faso was following a depressingly familiar script. President Blaise Compaor\u00e9 had first come to power through a military coup in 1987. Four years later, he won election as the country\u2019s president. Compaor\u00e9 went on to serve four terms as president, despite a constitutional amendment in 2000 setting a two-term limit. He circumvented this with a friendly ruling that the term limit could not be applied retroactively.<\/p>\n

Even by that generous interpretation of the rules, though, Compaor\u00e9 would not have been eligible to run again for president in 2015 \u2013 unless the constitution were to be amended again. That\u2019s exactly what Compaor\u00e9 tried to do, and that was the matter being debated in parliament when the mob set fire to the building, as Bombande followed along in horror on Twitter. The following day, Compaor\u00e9 resigned his office and fled the country, leaving an officer from his presidential guard in apparent control.<\/p>\n

The regional implications were also troubling to Bombande. With violent extremism spreading throughout the Sahel \u2013 Mali, northern Nigeria, Chad, Niger \u2013 another collapsed state would have afforded extremism with another power vacuum to fill.<\/p>\n

Theory to practice<\/h3>\n

From the WANEP policy brief:<\/p>\n

A period of instability could prove disastrous for other countries<\/em> in the region\u2026, already enmeshed in various levels of insecurity\u2026.<\/em> Burkina Faso\u2019s political instability could provide more grounds for<\/em> widespread insurgencies and rapid deterioration of human security<\/em> in the region.\u2026 The huge presence of unemployed youths and small<\/em> arms proliferation in a region with a history of civil wars provide a fertile recruiting ground for extremists.<\/em><\/p>\n

This sort of policy brief lies at the heart of one of WANEP\u2019s core missions in West Africa: the coordination of an early warning and response network for conflict. The network is an early example of the ways WANEP co-founders Bombande and Sam Gbaydee Doe<\/strong>, MA \u201998, worked to translate peacebuilding theory into on-the-ground results in a part of the world ravaged time and again by brutal wars.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of us who played a leading role in the founding of WANEP also found ourselves at EMU precisely because of its practice orientation,\u201d recalls Bombande. \u201cOne of the things we have repeated and repeated is that at EMU it was not just knowledge and theory, it was its practice orientation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEMU allowed us to rapidly bridge the gap between theory and practice, and that is what we wanted in West Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the theoretical sense, an early warning and response network is a set of processes and mechanisms by which people, organizations and governments can anticipate, identify and quickly respond to small conflicts before they escalate into bigger ones. As put into practice by WANEP, the structure is built on people across the region trained to monitor conditions and issues affecting them and their neighbors.<\/p>\n

There are now more than 260 of these monitors spread throughout the region (eight of them in Burkina Faso). They read the local papers, listen to the radio, follow the gossip at the market, and chat with their neighbors. Many of these monitors also maintain their own sub-networks of monitors who represent the entire community \u2013 men and women, young and old, members of whatever different ethnic and religious groups are present.<\/p>\n

WANEP runs this early warning network in partnership with ECOWAS, an intergovernmental organization made up of 15 West African nations. The network (formally called ECOWARN) is run out of the ECOWAS Commission headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, where WANEP\u2019s liaison office to ECOWAS is located.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Spotting nascent problems<\/h3>\n

Using a detailed, web-based reporting template, the network\u2019s monitors regularly report on points of friction within their communities. Suppose an argument over politics turns ugly in the market. The monitor in the area would send a report up the chain to the WANEP national office, which then passes all reports it receives to the liaison office and the ECOWARN situation room in Nigeria. Collectively, patterns can emerge and nascent problems can be identified before they turn into big and very unpleasant surprises.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole system is built on people who are active participants,\u201d says Bombande. \u201cEvery day we\u2019re monitoring each country\u2026. What we can begin to see, graphically, are things like rising political tensions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result: documents like the policy brief on Burkina Faso that warned of a deteriorating political situation seven months before <\/em>the crisis came to a head.<\/p>\n

That policy brief alone wasn\u2019t enough to avert violent conflict altogether. Tens of thousands of protesters battled police in the streets of Ouagadougou, parliament was set on fire, a dozen people were reported killed, and a military officer briefly appointed himself the head of state. But the response, informed by the early warning system, was both quick and focused.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the prior work that had been done \u2013 with all the analysis, the early warning, the policy brief and the advocacy \u2013 what was significantly different in this situation was that [the response] did not take even hours. It did not take a full day. The entire region knew exactly what needed to be done,\u201d recalls Bombande, who returned from Belgium several days later and plunged into the response effort.<\/p>\n

Comparatively peaceful transition<\/h3>\n

Leaders from the United Nations, ECOWAS and civil society organizations, with WANEP playing an important role, were soon in Burkina Faso working to ensure that an interim civilian government could form and agree on a clear path to open elections in the near future. All too often in the past, Bombande says, people and institutions responding to crises in Africa have tended to \u201ctrip over one another.\u201d In this case, however, the coordinated response at various levels, he continues, \u201cbrought an enormous pressure to bear on the military.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it worked \u2013 by mid-November, the former Burkinab\u00e9 ambassador to the United Nations was sworn in as the country\u2019s transitional president. Full elections had been scheduled for October 2015. After two tense weeks, Bombande began to relax. The system bent, but it didn\u2019t break. Violence broke out, but it was quickly contained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could have been talking about thousands of deaths,\u201d says Bombande. \u201cAnd we could have been talking about chaos on a regional scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurkina Faso is simply inspirational. People now know that they can change [their government]\u2026. I think this is a very good sign and that the early warning network has made a very significant difference.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

History of WANEP and WAPI<\/h3>\n
\"Sam<\/a>
Sam Gbaydee Doe, MA ’98, co-founder with Bombande of WANEP (Photo by Michael Sheeler)<\/i><\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1998, after becoming one of the first students to earn a master\u2019s degree from EMU\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Sam Gbaydee Doe <\/strong>\u201cleft EMU fired up to translate a dream into a reality,\u201d he told Peacebuilder <\/em>in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dreamed of a regional movement of civil society that would collaborate with regional intergovernmental bodies to restore not just stability in Africa but democratic freedom and prosperity,\u201d said Doe, who is from Liberia.<\/p>\n

Back in West Africa, he connected with Bombande, who had recently been working on mediation of tribal conflicts in his native Ghana (and who went on to earn a master\u2019s degree from CJP in 2002). Together, the two men founded the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, or WANEP, in late 1998. The group\u2019s first operating funds came from a $200,000 grant from the now-closed Winston Foundation for International Peace.<\/p>\n

One of the earliest programs of WANEP was aimed at women. In 1999, WANEP set up the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET). Doe had met a fellow Liberian, Leymah Gbowee<\/strong>, in whom he saw leadership potential in the face of a war that had decimated their country for more than a decade. As a result, WANEP hired Gbowee as its WIPNET representative in Liberia.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer courage and leadership in mobilizing women as a WIPNET staffer earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011,\u201d says Bombande, adding that the documentary \u201cPray the Devil Back to Hell\u201d features extensive video footage of WIPNET borrowed from WANEP. (Gbowee joined Doe and Bombande in earning a master\u2019s degree from CJP in 2007.)<\/p>\n

By 2000, WANEP had an annual budget of $1.2 million and 300 member groups from 14 West African countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe profound thing was the speed at which ordinary people mobilized for peace,\u201d Doe told Peacebuilder<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As interest in the new initiative grew quickly, however, the region\u2019s peacebuilding needs became apparent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe immediately discovered that there was a huge void in West Africa when you talked about knowledge, skills, capacity in conflict prevention and peacebuilding,\u201d recalls Bombande.<\/p>\n

To begin filling that void, Doe and Bombande organized a series of practical peacebuilding skills trainings in the region \u2013 including larger events in both English- and French-speaking West Africa. Among the leaders were colleagues of Doe\u2019s and Bombande\u2019s from CJP, including professor Barry Hart <\/strong>and founding director John Paul Lederach<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Lisa<\/a>
CJP research professor Lisa Schirch, an early teacher at WAPI (Photo by Jon Styer)<\/i><\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These trainings led, in 2002, to WANEP hosting the first official session of the West Africa Peacebuilding Institute (WAPI). Modeled after SPI, WAPI offered classes over a several-week period on a variety of conflict prevention and peacebuilding topics. One of the teachers at the first WAPI was CJP research professor Lisa Schirch<\/strong>, who spent eight months in Ghana working with WANEP and developing the first training manual for its women\u2019s group, WIPNET. (Current SPI director Bill Goldberg<\/strong>, who is married to Schirch, also worked with WANEP during that period.) CJP graduates Austin Onouha <\/strong>(from Nigeria), John Katunga Murhula <\/strong>(Kenya), and Gopar Tapkida <\/strong>(Nigeria) have all taught at WANEP.<\/p>\n

Since starting WAPI, \u201cwe have not looked back,\u201d Bombande says. \u201cEvery year, there were new challenges that confronted us that required [us to] constantly develop different courses to suit the different threats that were very present in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, more than 450 people have studied at WAPI \u2013 many of whom remain active participants in WANEP\u2019s regional early warning network or other peacebuilding programs. WAPI has been held each year since 2002, with the exception of 2014, when the Ebola epidemic in West Africa prompted WANEP to postpone it until March 2015.<\/p>\n

Doe was WANEP\u2019s first executive director, and served in that role until 2004, when he left to work for the United Nations. He now works for the United Nations Development Programme in New York City. Bombande became WANEP\u2019s second executive director.<\/p>\n

WANEP today<\/h3>\n

In addition to coordinating ECOWARN and running the summer institute, WANEP supports over 500 member organizations in 15 countries, through its network of national offices in each country. It has an annual budget of $2 million (U.S.) and 22 employees at its headquarters in Ghana, plus 45 in its national-level offices.<\/p>\n

When \u201cfunding sources dried up in the informal spaces,\u201d says Bombande \u2013 including the seed money provided by Mennonite Central Committee and grants from foundations \u2013 WANEP began to garner funding from European governments, including that of Austria, Sweden and Denmark.<\/p>\n

Governments want to be sure that they\u2019re investing in a durable institution, one that uses certain mechanisms and procedures, says Bombande: \u201cGovernments want to look at your institutional systems much more closely than your programs.\u201d This means that WANEP now needs staffers with the administrative skills necessary to run the institution in a manner that satisfies its backers and to issue the necessary reports, in addition to staffers with the skills to launch grassroots initiatives, as Doe and Bombande had when they began WANEP 16 years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Chukwuemeka<\/a>
The successor to Bombande, Chukwuemeka Eze, at WAPI 2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI think it is time for a new generation to take it to the next level,\u201d Bombande told Peacebuilder <\/em>in late 2014. Within months, he had handed the reins of WANEP to Chukwuemeka Eze<\/strong>, who had been with the organization almost from the beginning and who proved himself capable of increasingly responsible roles. And Bombande moved temporarily to being a fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, joining for a while his old CJP mentor, John Paul Lederach<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Bombande was feeling optimistic about the direction of West Africa: major advances in democratic governance were evident, and no civil wars had erupted since 2006, though there was post-election violence in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire in 2010-11.<\/p>\n

Now, however, he feels sobered by the rise of extremism. He cites the Boko Haram movement in Nigeria (\u201ca political scheme that has gone totally wrong\u201d) and seeing formerly moderate people in Burkina Faso doing extreme things \u2013 \u201cpeople who you never would have expected to go out on the street and to be yelling and saying outrageous things, including not caring for their own lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Bombande thinks this wave of extremism should motivate peacebuilders rather than discourage them. It just means that peacebuilders need to work smarter and harder, connecting with each other for support: \u201cThe worst thing we can do is think for a minute that we are not making an impact. We hav<\/em>e been making an impact, and what we need to do is to constantly re-think, reenergize ourselves, re-motivate ourselves, in terms of what more we must do that will respond to these global challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lessons from 16 years<\/h3>\n

Bombande was interviewed by a Peacebuilder <\/em>reporter during an October 2014 visit as part of an ECOWAS delegation to the United States to confer with the Office of the UN\u2019s<\/p>\n

Under-Secretary General for the Prevention of Genocide. As Bombande pondered the distance he had traveled from dreaming of a peacebuilding organization in West Africa to representing that well-established organization in top-level meetings around the world, he offered these reflections:<\/p>\n

With the United Nations Security Council \u201csplit down the middle,\u201d peacebuilders cannot depend on the UN \u2013 or \u201con the global architecture\u201d \u2013 to solve global crises, or even to prevent them. Instead peacebuilders must take the initiative to do this work themselves at the local, national and regional levels, interlinking with the experiences of other peacebuilders around the world and garnering international support whenever possible. But the day-to-day commitment and drive must be drawn from one\u2019s own locality. \u201cWe [peacebuilders around the globe] must motivate each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Emmanuel<\/a>
Emmanuel Bombande, MA ’02, WANEP head 2004-15, at WAPI 2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Providing for everyone\u2019s \u201chuman security\u201d is a standard that needs to be met by political leaders everywhere, rather than cultivating their own political base on narrow racial, ethnic or religious lines, which is a prescription for future violent conflict.<\/p>\n

Women are gradually assuming their rightful leadership roles in peacebuilding. WANEP\u2019s second-in-charge is now a woman, program director Levina Addae-Mensah. Bombande recalls recently watching another confident, skillful woman, Edwige Mensah, running a WANEP training session in Dakar, Senegal, and thinking that she hardly resembled the shy young woman who had ventured into a WANEP office 10 years previously.<\/p>\n

The understanding of what it takes to rebuild a country after it has been torn by war must change. Too many governments and large international organizations think it is sufficient to support the holding of democratic elections and the training of police and military to \u201ckeep the peace,\u201d as was done in Liberia. But peace in Liberia and elsewhere can only be sustained if poverty and injustices are addressed, education built up, and healthcare provided. In short, underlying socio-economic structural issues must be addressed, with international support.<\/p>\n

WANEP maintains a database of what WAPI-trained people have done and are doing to make a difference on the local level. The bravery of WAPI people has been inspiring \u2013 many have walked between lines of confrontation to defuse tensions. As an indicator of the risk, one WAPI trainee was killed trying to persuade a renegade general in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire to surrender to a UN compound. But also in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, WAPI people crossed hardened, military-patrolled neighborhood lines, separating Muslim and Christian districts, to record conciliatory messages from Muslim leaders and play the recordings to Christian leaders and vice versa. This eased the feeling of \u201cnever trust these people because you simply cannot have peace with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Bombande looks back at the last 16 years of WANEP, he feels proud: \u201cCan you imagine the situation if we did not do what we\u2019ve been doing in peacebuilding?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bombande says patience and persistence are necessary. \u201cI would encourage all of us, particularly the younger ones going through the CJP community, to look at it in this perspective \u2013 to never doubt for one minute how their contribution is, to the larger extent, what is transforming our global community, rather than depending on the global architecture, which in itself currently is a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Footnotes<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. WANEP first signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ECOWAS to be the \u201cimplementing partner\u201d of the early warning network in 2004, and just recently renewed it for another five-year<\/small><\/li>\n
  2. As the presidential election in Burkina Faso approaches on 11, 2015, there is still the potential for conflict.<\/small><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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