The Founder and Executive Director of ACCORD, Vasu Gounden, is currently in New York where he will address the United Nations (UN) for the third time within six months today.
Mr Gounden will be attending a Security Council seminar on cooperation between the UN and African regional organisations in the field of peace and security. The seminar is a lead up to a Security Council debate on a comprehensive strategy on conflict prevention in Africa, that will take place in January 2006. The action plan which will be put forward by civil society will be presented at the Security Council seminar today.
The three main issues which will be discussed at the seminar are:
- The African Mechanism (s) for Peace and Security;
- African Mechanism(s) for Peace and Security in the framework of the system of collective peace and security established by the UN Charter; and
- Capacity building for the African Mechanism(s) for Peace and Security.
In July 2005 Mr Gounden presented one of the closing addresses at the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) Conference which was held at the UN Headquarters in New York, and in September 2005 he addressed the Security Council as part of the debate on “The Role of Civil Society in Conflict Prevention and the Pacific Settlement of Disputes”.
In 1996 ACCORD was officially recognised by the United Nations as a model for conflict prevention and transformation in Africa.
