The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region is facing increasingly complex human security challenges, such as violent extremism, conflict, terrorism, transnational organised crime, climate change, epidemics, poverty, inequality and unconstitutional changes of government.

 These were the words of the Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ms Damtien Larbli TCHINTCHIBIDJA, in her , at the opening of the inaugural workshop of the Joint Analysis and Response Planning Working Group (JARP-WG) in Abuja, Nigeria , on 23 October 2024.

For Ms Tchintchibidja, represented by the ECOWAS Commission’s Acting Director of Early Warning, Dr Onyinye ONWUKA, these challenges are major threats to regional peace and stability.

‘Addressing these human security challenges has never been more urgent, which is why the establishment of the JARP-WG is so crucial,’ said Dr Onyinye ONWUKA.

The inaugural three-day JARP-WG workshop will bring together directors of national coordination centres for early warning and response mechanisms, representatives of various directorates of the Commission and other ECOWAS institutions, and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP).

The main objective of this meeting, which launches the operationalisation of the JARP-WG, is twofold. Firstly, to strengthen inter-departmental collaboration, synergies and coordination with key stakeholders, including in the ECOWAS Member States, national early warning and response structures, civil society organisations and international partners.

The second objective will be for participants to study and adopt the Working Group’s strategy for the Working Group, including the structure’s format, representation and responsibilities, processes for joint needs assessment, planning appropriate responses, the mobilisation and allocation of resources in emergency situations.

Dr Onyinye Onwuka also stressed the need for participants to examine the risks, threats and root causes of instability in the region, and to reflect on how best to anticipate and resolve these issues through a more holistic approach.

The JARP-WG tools have been designed to facilitate this kind of in-depth collaborative analysis, and it is up to us to make full use of them, she suggested.

These tools have been developed with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the Reacting to Early Warning and Response Data in West Africa (REWARD II) project.

The JARP-WG, was created in May 2022 and officially launched in July 2022 by the ECOWAS Commission.

It aims to strengthen synergies and improve the region’s capacity to prevent, mitigate and respond to the challenges of climate change, mitigate and respond to human security challenges, facilitate joint analysis, planning and implementation of responses and foster collaboration between ECOWAS and its member states.

The JARP Working Group will address issues related to the five thematic areas of human security thematic areas of ECOWAS Early Warning, namely security, crime, health, environment and governance.

After the opening ceremony of the workshop, participants attended a series of presentations on various issues relating to early warning in the ECOWAS region. These were presented  by Ms Nanténé Coulibaly, Marcel Bossou and Tunji Olonode, who are staff members of the Early Warning Department of ECOWAS Commission.