This session addresses the specific structure and function of the Trust Network and its Early Warning Early Response system tailored to the USA. Conflict Warning/Response systems cannot be structured by a recipe that works for every culture. How will our particular system work, and what do you need to know to take part in it?

Presenter Bio:

Madhawa Palihapitiya is the Associate Director at the statutory state dispute resolution office at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Madhawa has over eighteen years of experience in conflict early warning and early response. From 2002 to 2006, Madhawa designed and implemented a unique “third-generation” community-based conflict early warning system for Sri Lanka and managed a vast network of violence interrupters. The system used events data and local knowledge systems in communities to prevent and/or reduce violence. From 2013 to 2017, Madhawa helped design and implement a conflict early warning as part of the Training of Leaders on Religious and National Coexistence (TOLERANCE) project in Nigeria, which was a five-year service and research project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). As part of this project, Madhawa was able to help Nigerian Community Peace Observers (CPOs) engage in predicting and preventing violence through a centralized Community Peace Coordinating Center (CPCC) for early response and mediation. Madhawa also designed and oversaw the development of a unique cloud-based conflict early warning software called “Waayama” for tracking and interrupting violence.