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Early Warning and Early Response, by Susanne Schmeidl and Howard Adelman (eds.)
In June of 1995, the G–7 summit in Halifax called for the exploration of the means by which to improve the analysis of humanitarian disasters and the utilization of conflict-related early warning information, noting that the issue was not the collection of more information, but the enhancement of analytical capacity, as well as the process of making analyses available to decision makers. In response to this, and numerous other calls within the UN and outside, the Prevention/Early Warning Unit at the York Centre for International and Security Studies organized a conference on the Synergy in Early Warning on March 15–18, 1997. The conference built on a series of workshops held over several years at the Centre for Refugee Studies (1991, 1992, 1993) by Professor Howard Adelman, the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland (1993, 1996) by Professor Robert Ted Gurr and Dr. John Davies, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa (1996), and the Mershon Center for International Security at Ohio State University (1996) by Professor J. Craig Jenkins. These past workshops generally focused only on certain parts of early warning analysis, such as quantitative/qualitative modeling and data systems, without fully attempting to bridge the quantitative/qualitative gap, the organizational issues and the analyses/response linkages. This conference tried to bridge the gap focused on three types of synergies in establishing an early warning network: integrating diverse research methods; combining the organization efforts of academics, states, international agencies and NGOs; and connecting analyses to strategic responses.
The conference brought together leading academics, policy makers, and representatives of relevant international organizations and NGOs from all over the world. The integration of policy responses with analysis was intended to increase the capacity of early warning analysis to be sensitive to the needs of policy makers and provide them with specific tools and options.
It is this conference that this book drew papers from. While the conference had a much larger focus of a synergy in early warning, the aim of this book was to clearly define early warning and its component parts. From all conference presentations those that covered the conceptualization of early warning, the information gathering, analysis and link to policy were selected. In addition, two papers not originally presented at the conference were added from conference participants. Thus, this book is a clear conference outcome, yet somewhat set apart from the actual conference proceedings that were already distributed.
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