Mr Avoka (left), sharing a point with Mr. Kwesi Aning (in smock), Head of Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution Department at the Kofi Annan International Training Centre for Peacekeeping. With them are some of the other participants. Photo: Bisma
A three-week peace building capacity training for 40 peace practitioners from Africa, Europe, the United States and the Middle East began in Accra on Monday.
The participants are from Uganda, DR Congo, Tanzania, Chad, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Italy, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Germany, Gabon, Madagascar, Sudan, Australia and Ghana.
The course, being organised by the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), with facilitation from the West Africa Peace-building Institute (WAPI), will provide a platform for the participants to explore the concepts and paradigms in peace building within the context of the experiences of peace building in West Africa informed by current trends of conflict, and mechanisms for conflict transformation.
It will involve intensive engagement, sharing of experiences and knowledge to enhance peace building in Africa and beyond.
Opening it, the Minister of the Interior, Mr Cletus Avoka, called for collaboration between governments and relevant stakeholders including civil society organisations towards eliminating the scourge of conflicts in Africa and the world at large.
“Our continent is rich in natural resources and until we begin to realise that conflicts of all kinds hamper our progress and development, we shall be confined to underdevelopment and poverty,” he said.
Mr Avoka said the visual images shown around the world on international media platforms of African women and children fleeing conflicts belong to the past, adding, “our common enemy is poverty, hunger, illiteracy, diseases and under-development and we need to work towards eradicating them.”
He said despite those challenges, the African continent was witnessing some significant paradigm shift with the international community, regional organisations and governments taking peace and security, human rights and governance issues more seriously.
The minister said eforts and multiple pronged strategies adopted to address the complexity of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction had been intensified through partnerships.
He acknowledged the complementary roles of civil society organisations in building peace and sustaining development.
“The responsibility to protect, prevent and rebuild is not only the obligation of the United Nations and individual governments, but it is an obligation for all of us and therefore the contribution of civil society groups working to promote peace must not be overlooked”, the minister stated.
He said there was the need to develop more effective and integrative approaches to promoting peace and stability.
Mr Avoka said the government was constructively collaborating with the state and civil society organisations in peace building to ensure that mechanisms for non violent resolution of conflicts were instituted.
He advised participants to take the course seriously so as to impart the skills acquired on their countries.
The Executive Director of WANEP, Emmanuel Bombande, said governments’ commitments to equitable development, economic transparency, fight against impunity and corruption were critical to the prevention of conflicts in Africa.
He emphasised the need for community dialoguing as a means of building peace, and ensuring peaceful-coexistence in the country and the continent at large.
