The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), a leading Regional Peacebuilding organisation, has launched a research project on Responsibility to Protect (R2P): ?Assessing National and Regional Capacities for Implementing R2P in Ghana and West Africa.?
R2P refers to the obligation of states toward their populations and toward all populations at risk of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes.
The one year project, which is at the cost of $82,600, is being funded by the Danish Government in collaboration with WANEP.
It focuses on the operationalisation of R2P especially in Ghana but with a wider inference to the West Africa Region, paying specific attention to historical and local context.
The project sets out to examine the state of readiness of various actors in Ghana and member states of the ECOWAS to ensure the implementation and operationalisation of R2P.
Mr Chukwuemeka Eze, WANEP Executive Director in his address at the launch in Accra said the economic potential of the region is hugely undermined by instability and violent conflict.
He said the region is still grappling with the devastating effects of conflicts and complicated by insecure borders, socio-economic snags, youth unemployment, systematic ethnic discrimination/exclusion, and non-respect for human rights, disputes over political participation and land and other natural resource allocation.
He said the experiences of West Africa underscore the relevance of prevention to give meaning to the operationalisation of the R2P.
He said as part of its conflict prevention regime, WANEP commenced its flagship programme dubbed: ?West Africa Early Warning and Response Network (WARN)? in 1999 with the primary objective to provide early warning information and design timely response to prevent the outbreak or mitigate the escalation of conflict.
He said as a result of the remarkable progress of WARN, WANEP entered into an historic partnership with ECOWAS in 2002 as the civil society implementation partner for the establishment and operationalisation of ECOWAS Early Warning and Response Network.
Mr Eze said recent experiences of intervention such as in Cote d?Ivoire provides enough justification for a renewal of emphasis on preventive measures and the way civil society organisations could help states to meet their R2P obligations and responsibility.
He said the outcome of the project would be of immense benefit to Ghana and ECOWAS in its quest to promote peace and security in the country.
Mr Emmanuel H. Bombande, Co-Founder and the immediate past Executive Director of WANEP, said it is pertinent particularly for media practitioners to note that crimes against humanity do not just happen in a country by accident.
He said none of the countries in which crimes were committed found themselves in such volatile conflicts; the environment for atrocity crimes was first of all created and nurtured to produce a climate of intolerance and hatred.
?Once we do not see what is happening or simply ignore such environment of high level intolerance, it only now depends on the time and moment around a particular event for a trigger to exploit the already charged intolerant environment,? he stated.
Mr Eddison Mensah Agbenyegah, Deputy Director, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration lauded the Danish Government for undertaking to provide the necessary support for the research project.
He said Ghana had been working closely with like-minded states like Denmark, Costa Rica and Australia to promote both national and regional ownership of R2P.
Mr Samuel Amankwah, Director, Ministry of the Interior said some states had failed their people and the world would not sit down unconcerned in the present global village; adding that the international community had a collective responsibility towards humanity.
Major General Obed Akwa, Commandant of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, lauded WANEP for its major role in promoting peacebuilding in Ghana and the West Africa sub-region and beyond.
Mr Vincent Azumah, WANEP Regional Coordinator, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation said the project would seek to create awareness on R2P, its principles and pillars and would critically interrogate the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework and its relationship with R2P.
He said the research results which would be publish in French and English would further enrich the appreciation of the R2p principles and create the needed awareness to ensure its application.
GNA
