Preventing conflict and violence in West Africa: Cooperative Institutionalization of Conflict Prevention Mechanisms in Regional Subsystems
Roundtable discussion with Reuben J. B. Lewis, Policy Fellow at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute
Activitat realitzada
Aula R3, Blanquerna Institute of Research in Communication and International Relations, Tallers 77, 08001 Barcelona
CIDOB and GLOBALCODES research group (School of Communication and International Relations, Blanquerna Ramon Llull University)
Conflict prevention projects require concerted efforts by institutions and groups towards its operationalization. The multi-dimensional and multi-faceted agendas of preventive action, as well as the process-based nature of its organization and implementation make its outcomes unpredictable and hard to evaluate. In a regional subsystem such as West Africa for prevention mechanisms to gain solid footing they must be embedded within institutions that serve as pillars and carriers working towards its institutionalization.
In this regard, therefore, this presentation explores a concept of cooperative institutionalization in regional subsystem as an applicable method for organization and implementation of conflict prevention mechanisms across communities in the sub-region. The presentation explains existing institutional capacities for transnational implementation of conflict prevention mechanisms and responds to a critical question of how can institutional cooperation and partnership between sub-regional, state, non-state and local actors help to institutionalize conflict prevention; and how and in what way institutions converge in taking action to respond to conflict risk factors in the sub-region?
Reuben J. B. Lewis is an academic and practitioner in the field of international cooperation, peace building, governance and development with a decade of professional experience in West Africa with regional organizations and transnational civil society structures; in Asia with Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Program for Global Human Resource Development for Peacebuilding and Development; and now in Europe as a Policy Fellow at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute, where he currently undertakes policy research project on transnational governance of institutional structures for conflict prevention and state building in regional subsystems in Africa. He holds a PhD from the Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation of the Hiroshima University, Japan.