Ministry of Internal Affairs and partners launch Early Warning and Early Response Project
Photo Credit: MIA
The Ministry of Internal Affairs on Friday, March 29, 2019 launched a project called Early Warning and Early Response, County Peace Committees and District Level Political Reconciliation Dialogues and Civic Engagement Project. The project will be implemented by the Liberia Peace-building Office and partners including ZOA.
Here is the full text of the statement of Internal Affairs Minister Honorable Varney A. Sirleaf.
“The Government through the Ministry of Internal Affairs is pleased to welcome all of you – as your presence here today, indeed demonstrates the kind of stronger partnership and bond of relationship you have with the Government of Liberia.
Having said that, let me first seize the moment to thank the Government and people of Sweden through H.E. Ingrid Watterquist, Ambassador of Sweden, for providing the needed financial support to implement this flagship Project of the Government of Liberia. We would also like to thank our UN family and other potential donors including IRISHAID for their interest to support Government’s efforts towards conflict prevention and transformation in meeting some objectives of Pillar three of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD) - Sustaining the peace!
There are evidenced based reports and policy documents including the PAPD, the Opportunity Mapping for Peace Consolidation, the Social Cohesion and reconciliation Index Survey (SCORE), as well as the Strategic Roadmap for national healing, peacebuilding and reconciliation, - they all point to the fragility of the Peace we enjoy, and therefore call for multiple approaches and interventions to address the challenges to sustained peace and continuous stability;
We are pleased to note that this intervention was designed based on real issues and challenges identified by these instruments referred to above;
The Project, no doubt, will help to further strengthen Government’s capacity and ability to respond to these issues which will inherently help in a tremendous way to contribute to ending fragility during the period of the implementation of the PAPD and promote the culture of non-violence in our society.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, given the focus of this Project – conflict prevention through early warning and early response systems; strengthening mediation capacity through the County and district Peace Committees, fostering political reconciliation through inclusive and participatory dialogue processes, as well as enhancing civic engagement for the purpose of promoting public participation and increasing civic trust - these are fundamental to sustaining the peace agenda of the Government and will enable the socio-economic development of our country;
We believe, the early identification of potential triggers of conflicts and their positive transformation are vital for preventive responses and would stop escalation of violence thereby maintaining peace and security - and this project is set to deliver on such outcome;
Further, the Government believes that Conflict Early warning is a sound policy and a right socio-political move for maintaining peace and security. Itis a strategy that defines interventions that are designed to prevent the resumption of violent conflict by creating sustainable peacebuilding activities to address the root causes or potential causes of violence, and creates a societal anxiety for peaceful conflict resolution and stabilize society politically and socio-economically;
In this public manner, we would like to challenge the Liberia Peacebuilding Office and Office of the National Peace Ambassador and ZOA-Liberia, to ensure that the different project outputs and outcomes are achieved by further ensuring effective implementation of project activities coupled with the efficient management of project resources;
The Project which has two phases runs up to October 2021 with the first phase valuing at over US$500,000. We are happy for this grant and would once more, like to extend our thanks and appreciation to the Government of Sweden for this opportunity.
Finally, I would like to assure you of Government’s commitments and support to the delivery of this project, and also would like to encourage that together, we explore means to sustain the gains that will be made after the project comes to an end.
I thank you!