Early Warning to Early Action
Children’s recruitment and use in violence is a defining element of most modern conflict globally. Understanding the risk factors that lead to recruitment and use is thus important for conflict prevention and sustainable global peace and security more broadly. There is currently no early warning system focused on recruitment and use, and most conflict-based warning systems do not employ indicators related to children or their recruitment and use within their conflict analysis. Since 2019, the Dallaire Institute has been working to fill this gap and shift early warning to early action.
Knowledge for Prevention
Our Knowledge for Prevention (K4P) project is designed to address ongoing research and policy gaps around children’s recruitment and use in armed violence. We have developed a predictive model that can estimate the likelihood of recruitment and use at the national level with 86% accuracy up to two years in advance, and have been developing early action tools to help facilitate the effective translation of warning into timely and collaborative action. This work has led to the Dallaire Institute’s interventions in conflict and fragile situations such as Mozambique.
Annual K4P Symposium
Since 2019, the Dallaire Institute has held an international K4P Symposium with subject matter experts from around the world to share knowledge, seek regional expertise, and provide an opportunity for cross-sectoral networking focused on early warning, peacekeeping, child protection and recruitment prevention. Previous symposiums have been held in Oslo, Norway; in Kigali, Rwanda; in Montevideo, Uruguay; and online. Follow the Dallaire Institute on social media to keep up to date about the 5th annual K4P Symposium in 2023.
To learn more, watch the recordings or read the conference report from K4P 2022 in Uruguay.