West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is the largest regional peacebuilding group in West Africa. The focus on conflict resolution, mediation, and human rights. Founded in 1998 by Samuel Gbaydee Doe and Emmanuel Bombande the organization rose out of the various civil wars and inter-ethnic conflicts in Liberia, Ghana, and other West African countries. It currently has over 500 member organizations spread across the 15 countries represented by ECOWAS.
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Founding
Following Sam Doe’s return to Ghana after completing his M.A. in Conflict Transformation at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding he worked with Ghanaian Emmanuel Bombande to found a peacebuilding organization for West Africa. Based on his background in working with trauma during the Second Liberian Civil War, and his work establishing youth dialogue organizations, and Bombande’s efforts with Hizkias Assefa at the Nairobi Peace Initiative in resolving the Kokomba-Nanumba conflict in northern Ghana, WANEP focused on both lessening existing conflicts and preventing future outbreaks. By directing efforts toward grassroots efforts the organizations helped local leaders and citizens resolve conflicts without outside intervention.
Leadership
Samuel Gbaydee Doe served as the executive director of WANEP from its formation in 1998 until 2004. In 2004, then director of programs, Emmanuel Bombande was appointed executive director.
Programs and Organizations
One of the more prominent programs of WANEP was the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET). An early predecessor to WIPNET was independently formed in the early 1990s to protest the 1st Liberian Civil War leading public marches and attending the peace talks. It was reformed under WANEP in 2002 under the leadership of future Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee to help organize the women of Liberia in mass, non-violent protests and other actions against the civil war. It is credited with urging Charles Taylor’s government and the Liberians for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) into a ceasefire and leading to the end of the conflict.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has cited WIPNET as being one of the key factors supporting women’s prominent role in peace building in Liberia.
Under a leadership dispute with the all-male leadership of WANEP, Gbowee left WIPNET in 2006 to found her own organization, Women in Peacebuilding and Security Network (WIPSEN), with Thelma Ekiyor and Ecoma Alaga.
WANEP also operates the following programs:
Affiliations
The organization works with several regional partners including the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union’s Economic, Social, and Cultural Council ECOSOCC, and the United Nations Economic and Social Council(ECOSOC). WANEP is also a member of the Peace and Security cluster of ECOSOCC representing West Africa, and is the West Africa Regional Representative of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC).
Conflict Resolution Work
In addition to the work of WIPNET in resolving the Liberian Civil War, WANEP has been involved in several local and intertribal negotiations during its long history. They also serve as a monitor and critic of the several governments in West Africa. In 2002 WANEP entered into a partnership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to establish (under Chapter IV of the 1999 protocol relating to the mechanism for conflict prevention, management, resolution, peace-keeping and security) a sub-regional peace and security observation system. Known as the ECOWARN (ECOWAS Warning and ResponseNetwork) this inter-governmental structure acts as a regional early warning and response system. WANEP and ECOWAS have a memorandum of understanding (set to expire in 2019) which enables typically non-governmental organizations a path to Track 1 diplomacy efforts early on in conflicts.
The work of WANEP in establishing an early warning system has been instrumental in helping to resolve multiple conflicts in early stages. In 2014 this effort was officially recognized by Cote d’Ivoire’s permanent representative to the United Nations Youssoufou Bamba in his official remarks at the Informal interactive Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect: "Fulfilling our collective responsibility: International assistance and the responsibility to protect,", September 8, 2014.
A cet égard, permettez-moi de relever le travail remarquable que fait la section ivoirienne de la West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, la WANEP-CI, qui a mis en place une système indépendant d'alerte précoce, notamment par la diffusion de rapports mensuels de la collection d'informations, relatives à la sécurité humaine, et qui vise bien entendu, à soutenir les actions de prévention des conflits, et de promotion de la paix en Côte d'ivoire.
In September 2013 WANEP was also recognized for their work with ECOWAS to promote peace education in secondary schools across Ghana:
[These studies] will impart new ways of thinking and new way of viewing conflict thereby leading to building new structures and cultural practices in the society that deepens peaceful coexistence.