National Early Warning and Response Mechanism Coordinating Centre

The National Early Warning and Response Mechanism Coordinating Centre (NCCRM), was established under Executive order No. 88, in December 2019. The NCCRM was recently launched by the ECOWAS President Dr. Omar Touray with the Speaker of the National Assembly, some cabinet ministers and senior government officials on 27th December 2022. The Centre is mandated to: alert the government of potential human security threats; propose appropriate responses; activate and coordinate national and sub-regional level response actors; and monitor the implementation of response related actions. In a quest to achieve its mandate, the Centre is engaged in the collection, analysis, and generation of timely reports with recommendations from open-source information largely based on fifty-six (56) engendered pre-determined human security indicators on five thematic areas namely; Crime and Criminality, Security, Governance and Human Rights, Health and Pandemics, and Environment and Climate Change. As a strategic research centre, the overall goal of the NCCRM is to obtain a fully operationalised, integrated, effective and well-coordinated early warning and response mechanism in The Gambia. The functions of NCCRM are cross-cutting and as a result, the centre seeks for key consideration and inclusion in the programmes, activities and projects within the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) related to all its thematic areas. This will improve institutional collaboration, integration and enhance the professional, technical, and technological capacities of the NCCRM. Since the Centre is newly established, its continued participation in activities of the MDAs could also help to galvanise financial and technical support from partners and donors. In conclusion, the NCCRM aims to strengthen capacity and digitalise Early Warning and Response with improved technical, technological and communication capacity, using state of the art technology and more inclusive approaches in data gathering, analysis and response generation. This will enable decision makers and stakeholders to more readily access and utilize human security alerts and take necessary response actions.