John T. Shaw: Comfort Ero is tireless in her work to prevent tensions from exploding into international crises |
We sometimes think of statesmanship as requiring bold action on a large stage with dramatic consequences.
However, statesmanship can also involve quiet steps to prevent conflicts, halt them if they arise, and craft sustainable arrangements that bring security and relief to troubled places.
Comfort Ero, president of the International Crisis Group, has been active in, and committed to, conflict prevention around the world for her entire professional career.
For her, conflict prevention is not abstract. Rather, it is the practice and discipline of identifying emerging tensions, developing creative solutions, and urging policymakers to implement concrete plans to head off crises and avoid suffering.
“There are always moments,” she says, “in which you can shift the needle, in which you can find an avenue, in which you can create avenues for mediation, for a negotiated settlement.”
It’s important, she adds, “to help stave off the worst, identify opportunities to calm and avert violence, and, ideally, develop ideas for what global or regional orders might emerge from today’s tumult.”
With a doctorate from the London School of Economics, Ero is precise and scholarly. She is also soft-spoken, unflappable and determined. She can more than hold her own at the global gatherings she regularly attends such as the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Munich Security Conference. However, her primary passion is directed at those places where violence threatens and disorder beckons. She has devoted her career to studying conflict by visiting war zones, interviewing those in danger and devising plans to prevent war or injury.
Ero was born in London to Nigerian parents who fled their country because of rising violence that resulted in a civil war. This family experience, she said, triggered a “personal quest to contribute in a meaningful way” to building a safer world.
She resisted parental suggestions that she pursue medicine, law or academics for a career. Instead, she was drawn to studying — and trying to end — conflict. Ero was captivated by the challenge of combining careful field research, rigorous analysis and effective advocacy of solutions. She became expert in conflict prevention, management and resolution, as well as mediation and peacekeeping.
Ero first joined the International Crisis Group in 2001 as the project director for West Africa. She left several years later to become a political affairs officer at the United Nations mission to Liberia and appreciated being able to help that nation emerge from a decade of civil war. She learned that peacekeeping requires a careful balance of skillful diplomacy and the use, or at least the threat, of force.
She later returned to Crisis Group to lead its Africa program and then served as its interim vice president before becoming president at the end of 2021.
Crisis Group is an important and respected organization that should be better known. It was created in 1995 in the aftermath of mass atrocities in Rwanda, Somalia and Bosnia. Key global leaders insisted at that time that they only became aware of the unfolding horrors in these countries after it was too late to respond effectively.
This claim prompted several European and American statesmen to create an organization to monitor the world’s crisis spots, issue authoritative reports on events and trends, and propose solutions before conflicts broke out.
Now in its 31st year, Crisis Group has developed a sterling reputation for early warning, insightful analysis, practical suggestions and discreet diplomacy.
“Our mission is to prevent or end deadly conflict around the world and keep its ravages to a minimum,” a Crisis Group fact sheet explains. “When war looms, we sound the alarm; when war breaks out, we work to stop it; and when war drags on, we look for ways to alleviate the suffering it causes. Our central role is to reach policymakers with timely analysis and prescription that impels them to act in the service of peace.”
Ero offers a more succinct summary of the group’s work: “To save lives in a world torn apart by war and violence.”
She leads a staff of 135 researchers and investigators who are embedded in trouble spots, conducting interviews, studying problems and probing for solutions. Based in Brussels, Crisis Group has major offices in Bogota, Dakar, Istanbul, London, Nairobi, Washington and New York City.
Each month, Crisis Group publishes a global conflict report that serves as an early warning tool. It monitors developments in more than 70 countries and identifies trends, risks of escalation and opportunities to advance peace.
Crisis Group also produces an annual report about conflicts to watch in the coming year. This year’s report analyzed well-known wars in Ukraine and Gaza as well as conflicts that garner fewer headlines such as in Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Mali and Burkina Faso and Myanmar.
Ero discussed this report at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs in early February and said Crisis Group is determined to “shift the policy dial” and work to “create the political will” for early action.
“We put things on the table that others won’t put on the table. That’s because we deal with the world as it is, not the world we would like,” she said.
”We are pragmatic. We are highly political. We get our boots dirty. Our job is to thread the needle. Our job is to find pathways to peace,” she added.
Comfort says there is no single formula for averting conflict, but Crisis Group has learned important lessons in its three decades.
First, it is essential to act early before simmering tensions explode, engulf an entire region and become impossible to contain. Second, it is crucial to listen to all sides when confronting a looming conflict. Even those with suspect motives and bad intentions need to be understood and considered. Third, while mindful of the perspectives of global powers, it is necessary to devote very careful attention to the perspectives of the actors on the ground. They are likely to exert the most influence and drive events.
Ero’s work takes her to dark places, but she seems to have a buoyant spirit. She unwinds by taking walks and singing in a London church choir. And she fortifies herself by knowing that her work is vital.
“It’s about saving lives through prevention, mitigation and resolution,” she says. “Prevention is better than cure.”
John T. Shaw is director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. Shaw’s columns, exclusive to the Tribune, appear the last Monday of each month. His most recent book is “The Education of a Statesman: How Global Leaders Can Repair a Fractured World.”
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