Assessment of The Au’s Challenge on the Operationalization of the Continental Early Warning System: Internal and External Factors
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Date
2023-06
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Addis Ababa University,
Abstract
This thesis entitled “Assessment of the AU‟s challenge on the operationalization of the
continental early warning system: internal and external factors” was conducted with the
objective to identify internal and external factors that affects the performance of the continental
early warning system of the African Union. Early warning systems are necessary for detecting,
analyzing, and addressing potential conflicts before they escalate into severe outcome. When
used effectively, EWS helps prevent human suffering, reduce economic loss, and enhance the
efficiency of humanitarian aid efforts. The African Union's Continental Early Warning System
intended to monitor and provide early warnings on potential conflicts in the continent. However,
it has been plagued with multiple challenges to its performance over the last two decades; hence
the advantage of researches such as this thesis is immense in terms of identifying the factors that
challenge the subject and make appropriate recommendations for better performance. To this
end, this qualitative explanatory research method used key informants who are experts on the
field of Security Studies, Diplomacy and International relations which were identified and
purposefully selected to participate in the thesis. The ten participants in this thesis research were
subsequently, interviewed or given open ended questionnaires to fill out. In the end, their
response analyzed to identify the factors affecting the subject understudy‟s performance, why
these factors are persisting over the years and recommendations for better performance were
derived from the data. Moreover, prior studies by other researchers, press briefing, journal
articles and online sources properly used as part of literature review; and, to make sense of the
data. This thesis has further found that despite its significance for the continent, the continental
early warning system faced challenge such as early warning and early response gap, lack of
proper funding and problematic sources of funding, from AU‟s forms as a Weak and
bureaucratic institution, unclear and overlapping responsibilities between the AU and RECs,
organizational inefficiencies and recent restructuring. This study has also discovered that the
main reasons that these challenges are persisting are lack of proper funding and lack of political
will at the African Union. This is something that must be addressed to enhance the effectiveness
of the continental early warning system in preventing and managing conflicts.