Coopération, Sécurité, Paix et Développement durable : Quelle nouvelle stratégie des Systèmes d'Alerte précoce (SAP) de la troisième génération pour plus d'efficacité dans la prévention et gestion des conflits violents?

The atrocities associated with the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s and the Rwandan genocide represent a critical period leading to the questioning of the relevance of Conflict Early Warning Systems (CEWS), which purpose consists in preventing violent conflicts. On the one hand, the supporters of these mechanisms are enthusiatic about the invaluable contributions of CEWS and the notion that these mechanisms are crucial in understanding the underlying causes and dynamics of violent conflicts in order to enable their prevention, resolution and peaceful transformation. The critics, on the other hand, believe that these mechanisms are incapable of fulfilling their assigned mission. Thus, in order to fully understand these mechanisms and to verify the validity of the argument supporting their modest contribution in the process of preventing violent conflicts, a large-scale literature review was undertaken. With regards to all generations of CEWS, from 1990 to 2016, the main objective consisted in identifying difficulties in the literature and recommendations for the improvement of these mechanisms. Considering that CEWS and response mechanisms interact constantly, identifying difficulties and recommendations related to response mechanisms for the same time period in the relevant literature was also a focus. In order to strengthen our investigation, a focus-group with CEWS practitioners was held in March 2018 in Senegal.
With regard to the online literature review, a search strategy was set up. It allowed the exploration of several documents from a variety of sources. As for the focus-group, inclusion criteria for participant’s selection were also defined. On the one hand, 14504 documents were explored, of which 259 thoroughly reviewed, of which 153 were selected. In addition, 20 other so-called mixed documents, focusing on the main concepts of the thesis (5 documents per concept) were selected. On the other hand, 5 participants took part in the focus-group. As for the online literature review’s results, several types of difficulties and recommendations related to CEWS and response mechanisms were identified and divided into categories and sub-categories. Similarly, with regard to the focus-group’s results, several types of difficulties and recommendations related to CEWS and response mechanisms were identified and dispatched into the corresponding categories and sub-categories. Consequently, a compendium of difficulties and recommendations related to CEWS and response mechanisms from 1990 to 2016 was established.
By associating the Maxqda software to the document and content analysis methods, the two types of data (review and empirical) were valorized through the principal of inference. A cross-analysis of these two types of data made it possible to invalidate and confirm the existence of certain failures, but also to confirm the persistence of several difficulties that CEWS and response mechanisms face. A critical analysis of these mechanisms has demonstrated that, despite their contributions and progress, much work is still to be done, especially when it comes to the collection and management of information for early warning purposes. Indeed, the failure to take into account a number of technical issues could have negative effects on the whole Collection-Verification-Transmission-Analysis-Referal process (CVTAR) and on the management of intra- or inter-state conflicts. Thus, with regard to the later, the geopolitical and geostrategic game dictating the outcome of international mediation degrades its image by promoting a distorted and selfish culture of violent conflicts prevention. As a result, such flaws have prompted the formulation of alternative and relevant strategies with the aim of optimazing the effectiveness of violent conflict prevention and management. In addition to theoretical and practical contributions, the provision of a product, currently under conceptualization, to a federal structure of CEWS and response mechanisms at the national level, promises an invaluable contribution to social unrests and/ or violent conflicts prevention, but also a transparent management of public affairs and the promotion of good governance.