Ben Okiror
30 November 2008
Kampala — THE intergovernmental Authority on Development should design ways to deal with pastoralist conflicts.
This is one of the recommendations by the technical committee of the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism formulated at the end of its 6th meeting at Speke Resort Munyonyo on Tuesday.
Countries that make up the intergovernmental authority are Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti.
The early warning mechanism monitors and reports cross-border pastoral conflicts in Karamoja, Somalia and the Afar-Issa Clusters.
In order to ensure effective coordination, there should be a mapping of all peace actors in areas of reporting, the committee said. It also called for the fast-tracking of the ICT-for-peace project to ease communication.
The establishment of the Rapid Response Fund should be endorsed to become operational at the beginning of next year, the committee suggested.
According to the early warning mechanism director, Abdelrahim Khalil, local committees will apply to the fund's committee to access this money.
This, he said, would enable the mechanism intervene quickly as they wait for governments and other agencies to respond to conflicts. The maximum amount given to a project will be $50,000 (about sh100m).
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