Col (ret) SD Siyaya, Senior Programme Officer with ACCORD’s African Civil-Military Co-ordination (ACMC) Programme, and Lt Col M Tanda from the South African National War College, attended the 54th United Nations Civil-Military Co-operation (UN-CMCoord) course in Kuopio, Finland, from 15-20 January 2006.
The course’s main objectives were: to review the United Nations emergency response system and the roles of humanitarian agencies; to understand the role of UN OCHA in the co-ordination of international humanitarian response; to explain different sets of guidelines for the use of military resources in humanitarian emergencies; to apply the concepts, principles and guidelines to classroom scenarios and situations; to provide an introduction to the basic skills required for effective liaison in civil-military co-ordination; and to provide the opportunity to join a global civil-military co-ordination network.
A total of 31 participants were drawn from UN agencies, inter-governmental organizations, the Red Cross Movement, non-governmental organizations and various militaries. Apart from programme presentations, participants also had the chance to exchange information, knowledge and experiences from their various institutional and personal environments. Col Siyaya gave a presentation on ACCORD and the ACMC Programme’s objectives, achievements, challenges and its related work on the African continent. The course offered the ACMC Programme an invaluable opportunity to exchange training methodologies and experiences in the field and network with a number of different organizations.
