- My Sister, Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa, Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission;
- Ambassador Abdi Mahamoud, Chairperson of the Peace and Security Council for the month of July and Permanent Representative to Djibouti;
- My Brother, Bankole Adeoye, Commissioner, Political Affairs Peace and Security;
- Your Excellency, Mr. Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, Head of the United Nations Office to the African Union;
- My fellow CEOs of the RECs and Regional Mechanisms,
I am pleased to join you all today as we celebrate the pre-launch of the Inter-regional knowledge exchange on early warning and conflict prevention.
This event comes at an opportune moment when the contemporary challenges we all face to peace and security at regional continental and global levels call for collective and more coordinated preventive action.
Because “Fore-warned is fore-armed”, this platform provides the much-needed opportunity for deeper integration between the African Union, the Regional Economic Communities and Regional Mechanisms to anticipate and prevent conflict.
In this spirit, the platform should go further and purpose to also include and enhance early warning capacities within the member states, because their input is invaluable and will undoubtedly make our collaboration more meaningful and successful.
IGAD is very pleased that this platform squarely addresses the challenges arising from ad-hoc collaborations on conflict prevention and early warning which missed out on the opportunity to craft structured avenues for deliberating on peace and security challenges.
We now have the means to come up with collective and sustainable solutions through joint policy formulation and smart peace interventions.
The technical meetings and tools developed so far between the AU Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) and the early warning systems within the RECs have proved particularly useful in strengthening the capacity to learn about early warning across the continent.
However, the impact of these same products has been limited in influencing policy and action; And this is mainly because of there is still a big gap between the frontline conflict monitors on the local level and decision makers at the continental level.
We see this platform as a move towards closing this gap because it provides opportunity for structured and regular exchange of information between these two important actors.
In closing chair, this platform also has the potential to improve the link between early warning and early response with conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy tools.
You have my full and personal assurance that IGAD looks forward to being an active part of this initiative.
Finally, allow me Commissioner to congratulate you and your team on your success in launching this mechanism.
Thank You Very Much.
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