By Catherine Philip Jelani
Today being the 25th of June 2018, the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANEP), and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR), Partners on EU funded UN Women Programme “Promoting Women’s Engagement in Peace and Security in Northern Nigeria have organized a 3Day vigorous training for Monitors and Analyst on Gender- Sensitive Early Warning and Response Strategies within the context of the State Peace Architecture which are; data collection, Conflict Analysis, Reporting and Response.
However, Dr. Chukwuemeka Eze a CEO of WANEP Regional, Accra in a remark, pointed out that there are two categories of participants in the training namely; the monitors/data gathering participants and the Analyst/Response participants adding that at the end of the 3day training, there is going to be another 3day training for the Analyst/response team.
In a remark by the representative of the state Hon. Commissioner, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mr Sunday Stephen said that conflict would not have resulted to violence had it been that early indicators were properly tackled. He urged all to put in their best to ensure a successful training.
Ms Grace Awodu of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) and Head of Gender and Peace Security, Abuja in her paper titled; UNSCR 1325, she explained that the United Nation Security Council Resolution 1325 is a document that was adopted by the UN in the year 2000 in order to integrate women participation in peace processes such as decision making, dialogue, and other issues related to them. Ms Awodu has also given a brief background of the NAP (National Action Plan) which was developed by the Federal level the SAP (State Action Plan) which was developed by the State level and the ZAP (Zonal Action Plan) developed by the Zone respectively for the effective implementation of the peace building processes. She added that the action plan has the tenure of three years and that it has been reviewed twice since its creation in the year 2000.
However, the expected papers to be presented at the training includes; “Introduction to Conflict Early Warning”, “Conflict Monitoring Process” and “Application of Early Warning Indicators and Conflict Analysis”.
The training was held at Duragi Hotels here in Yola. There were 40 participants with a very strong representation from different MDAs, NGOs, CSOs, Security Agencies, Politicians, traditional and religious institutions, Academia, Media houses, Women Organizations, People with Disabilities etc. 20 participants as Monitors/Data gatherers and 20 as Analyst/Response team.
It could be recalled that on 15th -16th of May 2018, a 2day training was organized by WANEP and the same Implementing Partners on Community Dialogue for the Development of Gender-Sensitive Early Warning Indicators and Review of Peace Architectures in order to prepare a Standard Operating Procedure for the operationalization of Gender-Sensitive Peace Architecture for the State.
