Workshop on human rights opens

Accra, Nov. 26, GNA - A three-day workshop on human rights, crisis management and peace building opened on Wednesday, to among others enhance the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CBOs) in the right-based approach to peace building in Africa.

The workshop organized by the West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP), on the theme; "Building a Culture of Sustainable Peace, Justice and conflict prevention in West Africa," would also ensure stronger collaboration between human rights and peace building organizations for the promotion of lasting peace.

Mr. Emmanuel Bombande, Executive Director of WANEP, urged participants to share their experiences and lessons learnt in the three-year Justice Lens Programme (JLP) with other stakeholders, to ensure practicality and allow other countries such as Ghana to realize the importance of peace.

He explained that the workshop was intended to consolidate the work of WANEP in building the capacity of its members especially those in the Mano-River Union (MRU) made up of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and others, to intervene and prevent the escalation of early signs of conflicts.

About 22 participants from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana are participating in the workshop, which would also discuss skills to engage stakeholders in a constructive dialogue on issues reported as early warning.

Mr. Bombande said since the end of the Cold War, enormous concerns had been raised by political commentators, scholars and human right activists about sustained violent conflicts in Africa.

He said, however, despite the various warning signs, governance failures articulated by responsive regimes, rent-seeking practices and weaker economic policies had produced some of the most violent conflicts the world had ever witnessed in the Mano-River Basin areas. Mr. Bombande said the West African Sub-Region had gone through a decade and a half of violent conflicts, whose root causes were linked among other factors to gross human rights violations.

Mr. Bombande said unequal distribution of resources and lack of basic social services also formed part of human rights violations that were pervasive in the sub-region and represented great challenges to peace and stability when they were not handled efficiently in a timely manner.

"When human rights violations are not a cause, they are consequences of violations".

Mr. Bombande stated that to ensure effective address of the root causes of violent conflicts, attention must be paid to understanding the history of human rights violations from which a salient practices could emerge.

Mr. Takwa Z. Suifon, Director of Programmes, WANEP, said practical experiences in building sustainable peace, required the incorporation of human rights analysis that encompasses social, political, cultural, gender and economic factors that sometimes fuelled instability.

He said it had now become part of WANEP's practice to incorporate evident based early warning signs, embedded with action-oriented recommendations to decision and policy makers for response.

Mr. Suifon said Ghana's forthcoming general election would provide participants a good practical basis for discussions and offer countries such as Cote d'Ivoire who's elections were billed for next year beneficial lessons to build upon ensuring their peace building and human rights to prevent conflict. 26 Nov. 08