Angela Ndinga-Muvumba, Senior Research Fellow at ACCORD and Doctoral Candidate at the University of Uppsala's Department of Peace and Conflict Research (DPCR), took part in the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation's 50th Anniversary Roundtable Event in Uppsala on 2 March 2012, alongside a high-profile panel including Martti Ahtisaari, Lakhdar Brahimi, Francis Deng and Jan Eliasson. Ndinga-Muvumba's discussant remarks focused on African conflicts and peacekeeping and highlighted the issue of regional arrangements between the UN and the African Union (AU) under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter.

Angela Ndinga-Muvumba, Senior Research Fellow at ACCORD and Doctoral Candidate at the University of Uppsala's Department of Peace and Conflict Research (DPCR), took part in a conference on 'The African Union After Ten Years: Progress, Practice and Prospects for the Future', in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 20-21 February 2012. The conference was organised by the US State Department, in order to enhance U.S. engagement with the African Union through a deeper understanding of the African Union across the U.S. government. Ndinga-Muvumba's paper presentation was titled "South Africa and the African Union: The Dynamics of African Solidarity" and explored how South Africa's African agenda has evolved in its interaction with the AU.

The Training for Peace Programme (TfP) at ACCORD's Peacekeeping Unit, has been actively engaged in supporting the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Civil Affairs Division (CAD) capacity to implement its mandate.  Its relationship with UN peacekeeping operations can be dated several years ago, and has since been able to implement several projects in the areas of training, policy development and applied research.

In January 2012 ACCORD was recognised, for a second year running, as the 5th most influential Think Tank in Sub Sahara Africa, in the annual "Global Go To Think Tanks" Report released by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Programme at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. The ranking puts ACCORD 5th out of the top 30 Think Tanks in Sub-Sahara Africa. Overall 550 Think Tanks from Africa were included in the survey.

On 6 December, over 90 decision makers and experts at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) attended a Panel Discussion titled Climate Change Adaptation, Conflict and Cooperation: a diplomatic approach for Africa? in Durban, South Africa. The event was organised by ACCORD and OneWorld Sustainable Investments.

ACCORD is one of the leading institutions in the world working on civilian peacekeeping, having worked for the past seventeen years in strengthening the civilian capacities of the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), Regional Economic Communities (RECs)/Regional Mechanisms (RMs), and member states. ACCORD has also played an instrumental role in supporting the development of the civilian dimension of the African Standby Force (ASF), through direct support to the AU and RECs.

In October 2011 in Stockholm, ACCORD, in partnership with the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and Indevelop, a Stockholm-based consultancy group, facilitated a three week lecture series on issues relating to peace and security in Sub- Saharan Africa. These lectures form part of an ongoing five-phase training programme for particpants from African IGOs and NGOs, to strengthen the peace and security architecture in Africa - a key strategic objective of ACCORD's overall institutional mission.

Increasingly UN Member State discussions are moving away from linear conceptions of a "transition from peacekeeping to peacebuilding" to focus on the "nexus between peacekeeping and peacebuilding," a shift that is reflected in the 2011 report of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (A/65/19).  In 2011, one of the focuses of ACCORD's Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Units has been to increase the understanding and reflect on the linkages between peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and various activities and publications have been developed to achieve this overall aim.

Cedric de Coning, ACCORD's Research Fellow, has been appointed to the United Nations (UN) Peacebuilding Fund Advisory Board by the UN Secretary-General, H.E. Mr Ban Ki-Moon, for a two-year period that started in January 2012. The appointment follows Cedric's nomination to the position by the Government of South Africa, through its Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, and on the recommendation of the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding, Ms Judy Cheng-Hopkins.

ACCORD is involved in ongoing efforts to highlight the role gender plays in peace and security. In its three pillars of intervention, namely peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, ACCORD is cognisant of the role of gender in peace and conflict such that gender is a cross-cutting theme in the organisation's training manuals and operational documents. Against this backdrop, ACCORD's Knowledge Production Department (KPD) hosted a two-day authors' roundtable on the topic: "Women, Peace and Security: Approaches to Gender Empowerment."