On 5 March 2008 the Founder and Executive Director of ACCORD, Vasu Gounden, was invited to meet with the Finnish Director General for Africa and the Middle East, Mr. Teemu Tanner, at the Finnish Embassy in Pretoria. Mr. Tanner was in South Africa after attending a Nordic-Africa Foreign Ministers Meeting in Gaborone, Botswana.
The Government of Finland currently funds ACCORD’s African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme (APCP). They have also previously funded ACCORD’s African Civil-Military Coordination (ACMC) programme.
In 2007 Mr. Gounden was appointed onto the International Advisory Board of the Finnish based Crisis Management Initiative, which was founded in 2000 by its Chairman the former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari.
