Kofi Ampeah Woode
The Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria – His Excellency (HE) Mr Karl Nehammer, has announced his country’s intention to award the 2nd edition of the KOFI ANNAN AWARD FOR INNOVATION IN AFRICA in 2024, at a visit to Ghana’s Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).
As part of his two–day visit to Ghana, Austria’s Prime Minister visited the KAIPTC on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, where he stated that the Award – an initiative of the Austrian Federal Chancellery – will seek to raise awareness for an entrepreneurial continent full of opportunities, and to honour the late United Nations Secretary General’s legacy and commitment to a more just and equitable world.
The Austrian Prime Minister said the ideation of the KOFI ANNAN AWARD, was borne out of a high-level forum of African–European collaboration hosted in a framework of Austria’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) in 2018, which highlighted the significant impact African entrepreneurs achieve in areas such as health, education, agriculture, through digital and innovative solutions.
Alluding to the first edition of the Award in 2022, which was a collaboration between the Kofi Annan Foundation, the Austrian Development Agency, and the World Food Program Innovation Accelerator, the Chancellor said it focused on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #3; good health and wellbeing.
Hinting that the second edition would focus on food security and sustainable agriculture – SDG #2, Chancellor Nehammer expressed sorrow that, for some years now, the number of people who are hungry, malnourished or under nourished has been rising again, despite decades of efforts by the international community to end hunger in the world.
Moreover, he reputed severe disruptions in the area of world food security to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, asserting that, it results in more than one hundred and fourteen million (114,000,000) migrant Africans suffering, with the number constantly increasing.
As HE Nehammer called for African social entrepreneurs to rise to the occasion with digital and innovative ideas to urgent challenges, he stated that “Not all current challenges can be solved exclusively at governmental level”, and that Austria has identified Africa’s enormous potential for promising innovations, many years ago.
The Commandant, KAIPTC – Major General (Maj Gen) Richard Addo Gyane in a welcome speech traced the antecedents of KAIPTC-Austria Cooperation, which he said began in 2014 with a Memorandum of Understand (MOU) signed in January 2015, to deploy and finance staff to the KAIPTC. He announced that although the current MOU expires in December 2022, diplomatic arrangements have been installed to extend it for five more years.
He introduced KAIPTC to the audience of diplomats and businessmen, as one of three institutions designated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as a regional Training Centre of Excellence for the delivery of training and research in the areas of Conflict Prevention, Conflict Management and Peace Support Operations.
The KAIPTC over the years, has trained military, police, and civilian personnel for multidimensional peacekeeping and Peace Support Operations (PSOs) in Africa, by providing them with the requisite skills and competencies to respond to complex peace and security challenges in West Africa and on the African continent, he continued.
“The work we do in strengthening the African Peace and Security Architecture and other regional structures and mechanisms of the AU in peace and security, could not have been possible without the support of our committed Development Partners. I would like to thank the Austrian Government for adding the Centre to the list of beneficiary institutions in the search for global peace and stability”, he further stated.
Two courses that are run with the support of the Austrian Government at KAIPTC are the Humanitarian Assistance in West Africa (HAWA) Core Course which has so far strengthened the capacities of 379 participants – 200 males and 179 females from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal, and the Political Advisors Course, which has trained 103 participants made up of 83 males and 20 females.
The HAWA Core Course, which is currently in its fourth phase, is in line with African Union’s Agenda 2063 that aims at providing humanitarian assistance to Member States most affected by the problem of forced displacement and addressing humanitarian crises on the Continent, and also in line with the ECOWAS Humanitarian Policy to standardize the practice of humanitarian action in Member States.
With increase in demand for the Political Advisors Course, Maj Gen Gyane proposed that the course, which is run once a year in English, should be run twice a year, with a French component, and for the Austrian Government to take up the full cost of the Course, to free scarce internally generated funds for other critical needs of the KAIPTC.
General Gyane hinted of efforts to explore deeper areas of engagement such as collaborative research and exchange of guest scholars with Austrian institutions, such as the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR).
KAIPTC is on record to have been the first Training Centre of Excellence (TCE) to have a Women Peace and Security Institute (WPSI) as one of its core components, to promote effective implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 and the Maputo Protocol, which serves key Austrian interests – human rights, rule of law, women and children’s rights.
KAIPTC intends to strengthen its WPSI operations by upgrading it into a department, and adding a focus on the youth. Austria sponsors a Gender Expert Project Officer at KAIPTC’s WPSI to support KAIPTC’s Humanitarian Assistance Program.
The Government of Austria provides financial and technical support to KAIPTC, by seconding an Austrian officer, and also sponsoring one Assistant Course Director for the Humanitarian Assistance Program and One Gender Expert Project Officer at the WPSI, to support the Humanitarian Assistance Program.
Also present at the Prime Minister’s historic visit was the Ambassador, Embassy of Austria in Abuja, Nigeria – Mr Thomas Schlesinger and Executive Management members of KAIPTC.
By Kofi Ampeah–Woode
