ACCORD attended the 8th African Standby Capacity (ASC) Annual Coordination Meeting from 18 May 2021 to 20 May 2021. The Coordination Meeting was attended by over 30 participants representing the African Union Peace Support Operations Division (AU PSOD), Regional Economic Communities/Regional Mechanisms (RECs/RMs), Training Centers of Excellence (TCEs) and ASC Technical Implementation Partners (Centre for International Peace Operations (ZIF), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ-Ethiopia), United Nations office to the African Union (UNOAU) and ACCORD).
In line with the MOU on Cooperation in Areas of Peace and Security between the African Union Commission (AUC) and RECs/RMs, the ASC Annual Coordination Meeting is held once a year on the basis of the need to enhance relationships between the AU and the RECs/RMs and to promote information exchange regarding the generation and preparation of civilian capabilities of the African Standby Force. As a platform that brings together the Civilian Component from the AUC and RECs/RMs Planning Elements (PLANELMs) and other stakeholders, the meeting is very important as a platform to discuss the operational aspects of the ASC roster, challenges in implementing operational plans, harmonization of rostering activities and development of practicable implementation plans.
The key aspects and priorities of the 8th Annual ASC Coordination Meeting were to receive updates from the RECs/RMs on ASC activities that have been carried out as well as for them to share their proposed plans for the rest of 2021, to receive an update on the status of the roster (numbers against the required levels), to address challenges being faced and to recommend solutions to the challenges, to develop recommendations of the Workforce Planning Assessment and to introduce and release the upgraded ASC Database. Recommendations from the meeting included requests from the RECs to the AU and implementation partners on training on the 2nd Edition of Selection Guidelines Manual of the ASC Roster, onsite Integrated Human Resources and Database Training/Coaching and mentoring and the dissemination of all relevant policy documents relating to AU Peace Support Operations.
Through the Training for Peace (TfP) Programme, ACCORD’s overall objective in participating in the ASC Annual Coordination Meeting and ASC activities is to support the AU’s concerted efforts at building a pool of ready-to-deploy civilian experts and to support the rostering and training of these civilian experts. The 8th ASC Annual Coordination Meeting was attended by Mr Wandile Langa and Miss Rumbidzaishe Matambo of ACCORD’s TfP Programme within the Peace Support Operations Cluster. The TfP Programme at ACCORD is an initiative funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
