USAID/OTI Liberia Hot Topics
January 2005
System Alerts Communities to Tensions Before Violence Erupts
A Liberian advocacy group has taught dozens of residents to use a system that calls attention to simmering disputes before they boil over.
The training by the Liberia chapter of the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), a regional coalition of nongovernmental organizations, was funded by a grant from the Liberia Transition Initiative, a project of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives.
WANEP’s early-warning system for conflict mitigation trains community members to recognize and identify signs of potential conflict. The training is focused on “mapping” sources of conflict specific to individual communities and tailoring “indicators” to them. After their training, the Bong County participants started working on campaigns to encourage peaceful resolution of disputes in their communities, and they took part in a “peace and reconciliation festival” organized by WANEP.
The training, in which 47 residents of Liberia’s Bong County participated, began showing results almost immediately. When a mix of interfaith disputes and hooliganism led to street riots in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, in late October 2004 – barely a week after the training concluded – all was calm 125 miles to the north. “There were no reports of violent outbreaks in Bong County,” said Clinton Layweh, who heads WANEP’s early-warning program. “Due to the training, community monitors in Gbarnga (Bong County’s capital) were able to quickly recognize the signs of potential conflict in the city and called together community leaders to avert violence,” Layweh said.
As a result of the system’s effectiveness, WANEP is expanding its use to a neighboring county, Margibi. This work is also funded through a grant from OTI’s Liberia Transition Initiative. In addition, the superintendents of Grand Cape Mount and Gbarpolu counties have asked for the system to be introduced into their communities.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington: John Gattorn, Liberia Program Manager, 202-712-0716, jgattorn@usaid.gov
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