Type of Organization: Non-governmental - Non-Profit

Home Country: Ghana

Overview

West Africa Network for Peacebuilding—Ghana

Active Nonviolence and Peace Education programme

Work began in 1990 to establish a regional network of peacebuilding initiatives in West Africa. This arose as a result of the Liberia civil war, which necessitated the creation of a regional peace intervention force. Religious and civil society groups were mobilized to collectively participate in active peacebuilding.

In the northern region of Ghana a consortium of non-governmental organizations with funding support from the British High Commission in Ghana became actively involved in peacebuilding to respond to inter-communal violence that threatened Ghana’s stability.

A similar experience of cooperative action was witnessed in Sierra Leone in May 1997 when a civil society movement comprising all sectors of that society mobilized against military rule and successfully saw the ousting of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) was born out of these experiences.

After a feasibility study conducted throughout the sub-region, representatives of seven West African countries in 1998 officially launched WANEP in Accra Ghana. Many of the delegates at the launch of WANEP were key actors in the civil society collective actions outlined above. They created WANEP as a mechanism to harness peacebuilding initiatives and to strengthen collective interventions that were already bearing good fruits in Liberia, the Northern Region of Ghana, and Sierra Leone.

YOUTH AND PEACE EDUCATION PROGRAM
Promoting a Culture of Peace, Non-violence and Social Responsibility among Youth in West Africa.
For more information specifically about the Peace Education Program, please see: Website: http://www.wanep.org/programmes/peace_education.htm

The Youth and Peace Education Program, formerly known as the Active Non-violence and Peace Education Program, focused on developing a regional framework for co-existence and the promotion of a culture of peace, non-violence and social responsibility among the youth in the sub-region.

The Youth and Peace Education Program is currently linked to the Women in Peacebuilding Program (WIPNET) for strategic reasons, and operates in the same department, the ‘Women and Youth Department’.

Objectives:
• To increase awareness of non-violent strategies among the youth
• To provide a platform for youth involvement in peacebuilding
• To harmonise and strengthen linkages between formal and non-formal education structures in the theory and practice of peace education

A 2006 review of the status of Peace Education in West Africa is available here. The report was compiled by Assouan Gbesso.

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