ACCORD held an interactive training course for key peacebuilding actors in the DRC from 25-29 July, 2011 in Lubumbashi. The aim was to enhance understanding on the Presidential elections to be held in November 2011, to enable stakeholders to play a role in preventing and mitigating electoral violence.
On 21 April 2011 ACCORD hosted a workshop in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which brought together key stakeholders to discuss strategies for ensuring sustainable locally-owned peacebuilding initiatives in Sierra Leone.
Dorcas Ettang, ACCORD Peacebuilding Unit Analyst and Security Sector Reform (SSR) specialist, represented the organisation at the 3rd Annual General Meeting of the Association for Security Sector Reform Training and Education (ASSET) in Antigua, Guatemala from 7-9 March, 2011. The meeting served to understand and analyse the regional dimensions of SSR with the main purpose of informing the other participants of developments in the various regions with regard to SSR, and the evolving strategic and policy frameworks.
The United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council simultaneously adopted Resolution 1947 on the “Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture” on 29 October 2010.
The Resolutions call on “all relevant UN actors to take forward, within their mandates and as appropriate, the recommendations of the report with the main aim of further improving the effectiveness of the Peacebuilding Commission” and also “recognizes that the peacebuilding work of the United Nations requires sustained and adequate resources to meet the challenges”.
In October, ACCORD held a training course in Burundi for a wide range of peacebuilding stakeholders. Participants at the training included representatives from the United Nations Integrated Mission in Burundi (BINUB), United Nations Country Team (UNCT), African Union (AU), Government and civil society in Burundi - all integral to the success of ongoing peacebuilding efforts in the country.
ACCORD's African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme (APCP) will be conducting training sessions and workshops during July to September. This is tied to ACCORD’s aim of enhancing coherence and coordination of peacebuilding stakeholders through capacity-building initiatives.
“Peacebuilding challenges are not technical, they are inherently contradictory”, writes ACCORD’s Advisor for Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding, Cedric de Coning, in a recently published article in the quarterly journal, African Security Review.
ACCORD’s Deputy Director, Jerome Sachane cemented the organisation’s relationship with the Government of Sierra Leone by visiting with government officials and influential members of the peacebuilding environment in Freetown from 21-25 February. The visit comes a year after ACCORD signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Sierra Leone in April 2010, following the country’s acceptance of ACCORD’s 2010 Africa Peace Award.
The success of peacebuilding in many countries is largely dependent on regional peace and stability. In collaboration with the Nairobi Peace Initiative-Africa (NPI) and the West African Network for Peace (WANEP), ACCORD will conduct a high-level, regional peacebuilding workshop from 27-29 October 2010 in Monrovia, Liberia. The workshop will bring together key stakeholders from the countries of Guinea-Conakry, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone to create a clearer understanding of regional dynamics in the Mano River Region.
Following the changed mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), ACCORD has recently engaged with key peacebuilding stakeholders to consolidate sustainable peace efforts in the country.
Concrete steps must be taken to strengthen the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) ability to help countries emerging from conflict, with the aim of not only maintaining peace but promoting economic recovery and sustainable development. President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone made this call at the closing of the high-level two-day seminar in Durban recently.
