Pay attention to early warning signs of conflicts - Bombande

Accra, Jan 27, GNA - The seventh annual general meeting of the West Africa Network for Peace-building (WANEP) opened in Accra on Thursday with a call on state institutions in the Sub-Region to find ways of detecting early warning signs of conflicts and try to curtail them. The Executive Director of WANEP, Mr Emmanuel Bombande, who made the call, said most often people downplayed the early signs of conflicts only for them to erupt into serious problems, which were difficult to resolve.

"We should be able to intervene on time when we see injustices and misunderstandings creeping in among people and communities," Mr Bombande stressed.

As a contribution to the solution of the problem, he said, WANEP-Ghana as part of its 2005 programmes of activities would map out all flash points of conflicts in Ghana and explore ways of resolving them with the support of the state security.

The two-day meeting being attended by the 12-member countries of WANEP, including Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Togo and Sierra Leone is on the theme: "Consolidating the WANEP Restructuring Process".

"WANEP lunched in 1998, now constitutes the biggest and functioning civil society network in Africa which has enable women in peace-building programmes to gain high political visibility, attract funding and set up desk offices in the national network", Mr Bombande indicated.

He mentioned that the meeting would evaluate, restructure and consolidate its resources for better performance to meet new challenges.

"That is very important because it will allow us to renew ourselves and our organisation for effectiveness; build critical partnerships with other organisations and enhance our capacity to advocate for equity and social justice from the national, regional and the global levels."

The Chairperson of the WANEP Board, the Reverend Emmanuel Anyambod Anya, who is chairing the meeting, indicated that the challenge of non-violence, conflicts resolution and prevention was not just the fight against systems of injustice or unsatisfactory processes of administration but the search to develop alternatives in all the domains of individual and community life in a common effort to enhance live for all the people.