The African Union Commission (AUC) and the Government of New Zealand jointly convened and hosted a High Level meeting on Peace Operations Training and Capacity Building: African Perspectives on Innovative Capacity Building for Effective Peace Operations at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa Ethiopia on 3rd May 2018. The discussion focused on African peace operations training with contributions coming from empirical knowledge and experiences gathered over time by the United Nations (UN), Training Centres and troop and police contributing countries. Training is essential for effective Peace Support Operations (PSOs) that are characteristic of African missions and the meeting was therefore attended by many troop contributing countries that deploy into the UN and AUC missions.
The outcomes from this meeting will feed into the 24th International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centres (IAPTC) which will be hosted by the Government of New Zealand in Auckland on 01 – 04 October 2018. The meeting therefore created an opportunity for voices and experts from Africa to shape the conversation on the international stage.
The IAPTC is an association of independent global peacekeeping training institutions and other peacekeeping stakeholders. ACCORD held the presidency in 2000.
Participation in activities such as this peace operations training is in line with ACCORD’s strategic goal of supporting efforts at strengthening the AUC and regional capacity and capability to plan, manage and implement PSOs on the continent through the enhancement of the ASF capacities. This initiative also seeks to contribute to improved sustainable capacity for the conduct of peace operations on the continent through ensuring effective operational capability and functioning of organizational systems in the UN/AU/RECs/RMs.
The Training for Peace Programme at ACCORD is an initiative funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
ACCORD was represented by Brig. Gen (Rtd). James Machakaire, the Coordinator of ACCORD’s Peacekeeping Unit.
