Our Mandate

The mandate of CEWARN is to receive and share information concerning potentially violent conflicts as well as their outbreak and escalation in the IGAD region, undertake analysis of the information and formulate options for early response. The CEWARN Unit is an intergovernmental Project of IGAD member states that came into force in 2002 and has the regional mandate to Prevent, De-escalate and Resolve potentially violent conflicts in the IGAD sub region. The mechanism accomplishes this through structural and institutional engagements with various stakeholders from the Regional to National structures like CEWERUs. The CEWERUs work as National Steering Committees that incorporate the purposeful partnerships of the state and non-state actors such as the International organizations, the National Research Institutes and CSOs as well as the relevant government departments and ministries domesticating and overseeing the activities of the mechanism in the member states. This is in the interests of enhancing national coordination, leveraging and synergy building with all those better placed stakeholder to consolidate and deliver the agenda for peace and security promotion in the IGAD sub region packaged and delivered through closing the loop between the Conflict Early Warning and Early Response. The mandate of CEWARN is institutionally linked and established in line with the Peace and Security Division of IGAD.

Prior the member states of IGAD decided that CEWARN should begin and concentrate on cross border pastoral conflicts for the time being. The focus on cross-border pastoral conflicts was chosen as entry point because such a pilot project was of mutual interest to all IGAD member states which held common interests in addressing the problem and as a means to gaining and to encourage cooperation among countries in the Horn.

[1]The CEWARN Mechanism’s office is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia see CEWARN STRATEGY 2007-2011 page 16