ABUJA – (ECOWAS Secretariat Report) – Experts have lately commenced the validation of the Early Warning Gender Integration Manual and Training Modules of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria.
The report from the Communications Division of ECOWAS indicates that the two-day workshop is meant to review the draft document and ensure that it ultimately serves as a practical guide on integrating gender into the different phases of early warning systems of the regional community.
According to the report, the experts will be ascertaining whether the methodology on hand employs a gender – sensitive lens in data collection, analysis as well as formulation and implementation of responses to situations.
While welcoming the participants to the occasion, the Director of Early Warning at the ECOWAS Commission, Abdou Lat Gueye (Dr) commended the ECOWAS partners, including the West Africa Network for Peace building (WANEP), United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), gender experts and other supportive and collaborative organisations for their commitment to the process.
Abdou Lat Gueye noted that early warning deals with data collection, management and analysis in relating to human security, disclosing that the Directorate has been expanding its thematic areas and field activities, in order to effectively cover the five sectors in the manual.
He later said that the reason for bringing in thematic expertise is to ensure better tracking of issues, while being mindful of the need to document conflict patterns and triggers as well as the strides and operational procedures and actions, all of which make the validation of the manual relevant.
Earlier in his opening remark, the Chief of Party of ‘Reacting to Early Warning and Response Data in West Africa’ (REWARD), Alimou Diallo expressed delight at the gathering of experts, who dissected the manual which provides the overall framework for gender integration into early warning systems. He maintained that the validated document emanating from the exercise would give policy makers the necessary clues and timely signals seeing that the manual is needed for the transformation of raw data to useful life-saving information.
In a related development, an overview of the background, format and expected outcome of the workshop was given by the founder of IMPACT, Naomi Akpan-Ita (Dr). She informed that the presentation of the manual for practitioners would be followed by sessions on the review of chapters and training modules. Adding, through the exercise, the experts will determine whether the gender integration training manual allows for seamless transfer of knowledge and creates the much needed institutional memory in this regard.
