Publication

The Swiss Peace Foundation (SPF) launched a political early warning project called FAST in 1998. The driving force behind the FAST project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation was the destructive experience of violent conflicts (mainly in Rwanda) that led to immense human suffering but also to loss of investment as well as enormous and costly post-conflict emergency requirements. In Switzerland, the SDC realized that without being aware of potential crisis situations in countries it supported through development cooperation, it could loose its investment and jeopardize its staff. Thus it aimed at integrating early warning and conflict prevention analysis in its own assessment capacities, mandating the SPF to develop an external early warning system as a control mechanism and decision-support tool.