The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is a leading Regional Peacebuilding organization founded in 1998 in response to civil wars that plagued West Africa in the 1990s. Over the years, WANEP has succeeded in establishing strong national networks in every Member State of ECOWAS with over 700 member organizations across West Africa. WANEP places special focus on collaborative approaches to conflict prevention, and peacebuilding, working with diverse actors from civil society, governments, intergovernmental bodies, women groups and other partners in a bid to establish a platform for dialogue, experience sharing and learning, thereby complementing efforts at ensuring sustainable peace and development in West Africa and beyond. In 2002, WANEP entered into a historic partnership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) an inter-governmental structure in the implementation of a regional early warning and response system (ECOWARN). A memorandum of understanding between WANEP and ECOWAS was signed in 2004 for five years, and has since been renewed for another 5 years. This partnership constitutes a major strategic achievement for WANEP and West Africa civil society as it offers the much desired opportunity to contribute to Track I response to conflicts and policy debates. At the continental level, WANEP is a member of the Peace and Security cluster of the African Union’s (AU) Economic, Social and Cultural Council –ECOSOCC representing West Africa. At international level, WANEP has a Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and is the West Africa Regional Representative of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). WANEP is the Chair of GPPAC. WANEP provides professional courses in conflict prevention and peacebuilding informed by several years of practice experience to governments, businesses, and practitioners throughout the sub-region and beyond. Underlying its work is a commitment to professionalism and a dedication to a world of mutual respect, tolerance and peace.

WANEP’s vision is that of a “West Africa region characterized by just and peaceful communities where the dignity of the human person is paramount and where the people can meet their basic human needs and decide their own direction.”

WANEP’s mission is to “enable and facilitate the development of mechanisms for cooperation among civil society-based peacebuilding practitioners and organizations in West Africa by promoting cooperative responses to violent conflicts; providing the structure through which these practitioners and institutions will regularly exchange experience and information on issues of peacebuilding, conflict transformation, social, religious and political reconciliation; and promoting West Africa's social cultural values as resources for peacebuilding.”

WANEP believes in mutual respect, transparency, accountability, gender equality, teamwork, diversity, tolerance, justice, quality delivery, dedication, collaboration, and consultation as core values that would continue to inform its present and future peacebuilding work

Our cardinal goal is to build sustainable peace, thereby creating an enabling environment for development, in West Africa.

WANEP seeks to:

• Strengthen the capacity of peacebuilding organizations and practitioners in West Africa to engage actively in the peaceful transformation of violent conflicts


• Increase awareness on the use of non-violent strategies in response to conflicts in West Africa


• Develop a conflict prevention strategy and network in West Africa to monitor, report and offer indigenous perspectives and understanding of conflicts in West Africa


• Harmonize peacebuilding activities in West Africa through networking and coordination of WANEP members


• Build the capacity of West African Women to participate in peacebuilding processes at all levels


• Build a cooperative platform for human rights and peacebuilding organizations to dialogue and promote a culture of peace, justice and reconciliation in West Africa