About the Potential Conflict Roundtable Series

The Potential Conflict Roundtable, quarterly events sponsored by the Center for Preventive Action, convenes experts from government, private sector, nongovernmental, and civil society to analyze weak or fragile regions and states at risk of conflict in the next two to five years and to devise approaches to work with practitioners to build early policy responses to address those situations.

Identifying "hot" conflicts around the world is relatively straightforward. A more difficult task is identifying the situations, or "warm" spots, where there is high-risk of deterioration of political, economic and social conditions but not yet a digression into active social chaos, inter-community polarization, state collapse, and/or violent conflict. Greater effort at monitoring and assessing these incipient conflicts and worst-case scenarios in the coming two to five years is sorely needed. It is in these situations that preventive action initiatives can make a real difference.

While practitioners understand that preventive policies and actions have the greatest chance of reversing deteriorating situations when implemented early and swiftly, a wide gap persists in connecting early warning systems to early policy responses. To help fill this gap, conflict prevention efforts need to engage politicians and practitioners to assist with and promote the formulation and implementation of early responses to potential conflicts.