Peacekeepers Capacity Building Forum Underway in Addis

  Addis Ababa  October  28  /2019 The international discussion forum to sustain and expand capacity building efforts towards enhancing the peacekeeping training in Africa is being held in Addis Ababa today.

The three-day forum is organized by the Ethiopian International Peace Support Training Institute in collaboration and support of The Government of Japan.

 Some 34 participants drawn from peacekeeping training and research centers of Ethiopia, Japan, Kenya, Ghana, Mali, Rwanda, Egypt and South Africa are attending the forum.

In his opening remarks, Head of Ethiopian Defense Peacekeeping Center, Major General Diriba Mekonnen said the forum aims at sustaining and expanding the capacity building efforts towards enhancing the peacekeeping training activities in Africa.

Appreciating the government of Japan for its strategic cooperation in financing the event, he said that the forum discusses on ways to advance the quality of lectures through exchange of views and experiences.

The training will provide enabling environment for the African military elites to interact with each other through sharing experiences, he pointed out.

Major General Diriba stated that the forum will play significant impediment to the attainment of peace, security and the progress of development as they live in a time when discord and conflict continues to a challenge across the region.

He further stated that the forum expected to explore the various approaches of peacekeeping training institutions and mechanisms on enhancing the quality of peace keeping training programmes and challenges of peacekeeping training in Africa.

Japanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Daisuke Matsunaga on his part said African on Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs) need to diversify beyond ceasefire monitoring, as the nature of peacekeeping and the tactics needed are changing rapidly.

The Forum aims to strengthen relationships among the participant training centers and institutes and help them update their training through the sharing of information on counter-tactics of terrorists, he stated.

The training helps the peacekeepers to deal with ceasefire monitoring, the protection of civilians, facilitation of political process, disarmament, democratization and reintegration, security sector reform, support for rule of law, the safe holding of elections and protection of human rights, he mentioned.

Currently, there are 13 UN Peace Keeping Operations in the world, and 7 of those are found in Africa,including AMISOM, G5 Sahel and the MNJTF, among others.