Conflict prevention in the 21st century
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 4, 2016
Early warning and response in Nigeria
The aim of this roundtable – Early warning and response in Nigeria– was to give the CPWG the opportunity to discuss early warning and response in the case of one specific country.
The roundtable was attended by the CPWG, UK officials, academics and NGO representatives, and an expert from the DFID-funded Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP).
The first session provided an overview of both the drivers of conflict in Nigeria and the different early warning systems have been implemented – ranging from community based projects and SMS-based conflict early warning to multilateral initiatives such as those run by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It was recognized that, as crises in the country worsen, there is an urgent need to improve and develop, or even overhaul, existing early warning and response systems.
An overview of the work of the NSRP was then given, which explained how it contributed to warning and response in Nigeria, supporting stakeholders to identify and respond to violence, including mediation, resolution and sensitization. Through these instruments, it was argued, NSRP has been able to encourage prevention of violence and share information among different actors.
The discussion then turned to a consideration of the hybrid nature of the various conflicts in Nigeria and the implications for early warning and response in the Niger Delta. New analytical methods, it was argued, are needed to adequately assess criminalized conflicts, whilst monitoring and research methods of criminalized conflicts have to be reviewed to ensure safety. It was argued that grievance-focused responses alone are insufficient, as are pure law enforcement based solutions. Engagement with criminal armed groups, meanwhile, poses a new set of challenges.
This was followed by an overview of China's relations with Nigeria. Peace and security relations, it was argued, are not as strong as political and economic relations. Whilst China supports Nigeria 'morally' rather than materially in terms of anti-terrorism efforts, and also supports Nigeria in playing a greater role in regional peace and security, China has nonetheless, it was suggested, played a relatively minor role in early warning and response in the country. Some of the reasons for China's reluctance in this regard, it was argued, relates to its caution around issues of sovereignty and non-interference, sensitivities around Nigeria's role as a significant regional power, as well as China's relative sensitivity around issues relating to religious extremism and terrorism vis-a-vis China's domestic tensions. Entry points for China and Nigeria improving cooperation around early warning and response were identified, including the need to identify comparative advantages, to begin substantial cooperation in peace and security – especially around governance, and a focus on local capacity building in early warning and response.
The roundtable ended with a discussion around potential entry points for China-UK cooperation in Nigeria. Whilst collaboration was identified as the key to more effective action on early warning and response in Nigeria, participants also admitted that this was one of the greatest challenges. In this respect more thinking was needed around how early warning and response mechanisms could be better coordinated among different actors so as to promote a more holistic and synchronized response. In this respect, various participants advocated for increased collaboration on the ground among Chinese and UK embassies in the country as well as other key international, national and local actors.
China-UK dialogue on peace building and peace operations
As a means of promoting greater levels of awareness and expertise amongst the Chinese and UK policy communities on the respective countries' approaches to conflict prevention, the CPWG also took part in a meeting with DFID officials to discuss the UN peace building and peace operations reviews. The meeting provided an opportunity for the UK Government to inform the Chinese participants of the reviews and what they aimed to highlight. From the Chinese side it was argued that China is needed as a troop contributor to peacekeeping operations, especially given an apparent increasing reluctance to do so among western actors.
Future plans
Following the aforementioned activities, a joint briefing by two of the CPWG members, David Nyheim and Dr Xue Lei – Is Early Warning and Response Dead?– will be produced, discussing in more detail some of the key issues raised during the course of the week and considering the potential for China-UK cooperation in this field. In order to raise awareness of how China and the UK currently engage and cooperate on conflict prevention efforts, Chinese and UK CPWG members are co-authoring a series of joint briefings. This is the second briefing, the first of which was authored by CPWG members Dr Zhang Chun (SIIS) and Mariam Kemple-Hardy (Oxfam International), focusing on crisis response in South Sudan.
The CPWG's next workshop and side events will take place in China in July 2015, with a thematic focus on upstream conflict prevention. The CPWG is will also use this week to begin drafting a final report, to be co-authored by the group, which will bring together findings from the four CPWG meetings and provide lessons learned and recommendations for China-UK cooperation in the field of conflict prevention. This final report will be published in early 2016.
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