Daily Media Scan: Monitoring the Recurrence of Conflict

29 August 2005 - femTALK-Vois Blong Mere 2:A women’s media update from femLINKPACIFIC & Vois Blong Mere Solomons - a collaboration supported by UNIFEM Pacific

A daily media scan is assisting UNIFEM in the Solomon Islands collate information on monitoring the recurrence of conflict. This is all part of a global series of pilot projects which are monitoring peace and conflict using Gendered Early Warning Indicators, as Dr Annalise Moser explained to femLINKPACIFIC:
“The media scan is conducted through a partnership with Vois Blong Mere Solomons. We look at the Solomon Star newspaper on a daily basis and look just at articles pertaining to peace or conflict issues, which are very broadly defined. What we do is analyse each of those articles, identifying what the particular topic of the article is, whether the subject of the article is women or men, and whether the subject of that article is portrayed in a positive, neutral or negative light.”

While Moser admits that this is not a very in-depth analysis, the media scan does enable the team to identify the types of issues which are being portrayed in the newspaper, and how they are portraying men and women as well.

Aside from the media scan, a wide range of data collection techniques are used to capture the different levels of information sources – from community based information sources to formal documentation, such as through the newspaper: “We also do a community survey, using another set of indicators, we also conduct community focus groups with separate groups of women and men to gain a more in-depth understanding of how these issues are affecting communities,” says Moser

The UNIFEM Project in the Solomon Islands has trained 20 men and women in each of the communities that they work in to monitor their own communities using a number of indicators that they have learnt about. And Mosser has found that the response to informing and providing the community teams with a set of early warning indicators has been very positive. Not only are they more aware of how conflict can be prevented from within their community, but they have also endorsed that the issues that the indicators address, from governance, to economic issues, land issues, public security, all have a human security factor.

The UNIFEM Project team has chosen to work specifically in the ‘hot spots’, areas which had been particularly affected during the recent tensions: “The idea is that those are the areas where you will first see the signs of problems arising. We are working in two squatter settlements in Honiara, in Whiteriver and in Borderline. One community team is based in a community on the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal in Avuavu, as well as in North Malaita in Malu, and in a town called Noro in the Western Province.”

The project staff from UNIFEM visits the local communities to collate and analyse the information: “So we meet with the trained field monitors, to collect the data and to do the community survey and the community focus groups.”

Aside from the community based approach, the UNIFEM Project staff also conducts a national survey in Honiara which is targeted more towards informed specialists. These include NGO workers, government and other organisations, those who are thinking more ‘big picture’ about these issues in the Solomons: “We also collate national level statistics into a structural data set.”

The project does more than work to identify the possibility of conflict through a set of indicators. It has also developed a set of response options: “So for each of the indicators, we also work with communities to develop ideas for how they could respond to these issues, as well as how they would like to see the national level actors responding. That exercise has been very popular, it makes communities realise that they have the tools there, they know what the solutions are.”

So what are early warning indicators?
“The concept of early warning is that we look at specific signs so as to be able to anticipate conflict before it erupts. We are measuring and monitoring a whole lot of different signs or indicators, so that we know what the problem areas are, and that we can respond to those appropriately to prevent conflict. Obviously it is easier to prevent conflict rather than trying to respond to it after it’s turned into a big problem,” says Moser.

While a number of women’s organisations are involved in this project directly in the Solomons Islands, both men and women are being involved in the development of the indicators, as Moser explains: “A number of those indicators are specifically looking at gender issues, for example, domestic violence, marriage break up; We are also involving both women and men in the collection of data, at the community level, as well as at the national level, and we are involving both men and women in the analysis of that data.” This means that the project outcomes will be able to apply a gender lens to the early warning and early response approach, and also identify indicators that reflect both men and women’s experiences of peace-building and reducing conflict.

The gendered approach of the system of data collection and analysis means that men, as well as women, are able to recognise that women’s participation in conflict prevention and as well as peace-building is critical both as community and national level: “At the community level, 50% of the people we have trained are women, and we are already finding that in some cases those women are feeling very empowered by what they’ve learnt and are working for peace in other ways, initiating other projects. The training has given them confidence as well as skills to participate at somewhat higher levels in their communities in working for peace. At the national level, we are working with a number of women’s organisations and their involvement in the project is also enabling them to be more of a high profile actor in working to build peace here,” says Moser

The UNIFEM Project team in Honiara has just completed its first round of data collection and released its first early warning report which Moser believes is an important tool to assist in refocusing and strengthening efforts of peace-builders in the Solomon Islands, particularly as all of the indicators are at a moderate level which means that while a lot of work as been done over the last few years to build peace in the Solomons but it also means that a lot still has to be done.
According to Moser, the report can assist current efforts by ensuring more informed and strategic peace-building activities are undertaken around the areas that need to be addressed:

“We tracked 44 indicators and found that 12 of them were at a high risk level, for potential conflict. The most high risk areas were in governance and land issues. So for example, amongst the governance indicators, corruption was a major issue, also women’s lack of participation in political processes, came up as a high risk issue. Among the category of land, frequency of disputes about land, as was women’s lack of involvement in the community resolution of those land disputes.”

There were a number of other high risk issues, says Moser, including male and female unemployment, incidents of domestic abuse, as well as informal negative discourse – that is gossip. The report also highlights issues that are of significant importance for women in their communities. Marriage break ups as well as fear of reprisals from prisoners being released (from prison) were all identified as high risk factors for women.

The findings have been widely distributed in Honiara and have been well received by government, donors and NGOs, and as the project team is presently preparing for its second round of data collection visits, the findings will also be presented to each of the community groups and this will assist the project team ensure that they are on the right track, as they work with these communities to ‘track’ conflict, with a human security approach: “Rather than just looking at incidents of violence or armed conflict, we are looking at all of these other indicators, which certainly contribute to human well being and to potential conflict.”

For more information on UNIFEM’s Early Warning Indicators Project contact Dr Annalise Mosser on 677-24853

For more information on this women’s media initiative contact: VBMS Coordinator – Josephine Teakeni Phone 677-28738 or Sharon Bhagwan Rolls c/- 677-23942