Early Warning Analysis for Humanitarian Preparedness and Conflict Prevention1.

Ideally, early warning analysis provides information in a form that is easily digested by senior decision makers, serving as a first step in planning conflict prevention and preparedness measures. This paper outlines how practical early warning analysis can be undertaken, identifying seven central early warning factors within which individual indicators can be aggregated. While we can continue to search for the holy grail of early warning – that is the parsimonious polynomic equation which yields robust predictions, this should not come at the cost of the policy relevant tin cup that can be used today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]