ACCORD attended the 5th Civilian Strategic Support Group (CSSG) meeting on 4 December 2020, hosted virtually by the African Union (AU) Peace Support Operations Division (PSOD).
The CSSG is an annually held meeting that is held with numerous partners to assess the implementation of the African Standby Force (ASF) Civilian Dimension.
The 5th CSSG virtual meeting was held with the ambition to enrich the PSOD study that was aimed at assessing the implementation of the ASF Civilian Dimension Policy Framework to determine the progress made, and provide further guidance for the continuous enhancement of the Civilian Dimension of AU Peace Support Operations. Further to this, the meeting reviewed the revised 2007 Civilian Dimension Policy Framework, to optimize the contribution of the civilian component of the ASF and AU PSO at the Strategic –Level, Planning-Level and Implementation Level. The purpose of the projects is to respond to a continuous need to enhance the civilian dimension of AU PSO, to address the realities of current conflict trends and trajectories in Africa.
Additionally, the discussions provided the opportunity to assess the impact of COVID-19, and the challenges, opportunities and realities it presented in enhancing the Civilian Dimension. Though there are several uncertainties and unknowns that the ASF Civilian Dimension will be confronted with in 2021. The CSSG group was very optimistic on the growth and future of the Civilian Dimension.
The CSSG was attended by 62 participants from the: TfP, ISS, NUPI, ACCORD, ZIF, AUC, UNOAU, MONUSCO, GIZ, SADC, ECOWAS, EASF, ECCAS, Peace Operations (AMISOM, MNJTF) etc.
