Kofi Ampeah Woode
The Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has held a media forum to unveil the Third Edition of the Kofi Annan Peace and Security (KAPS) Forum, to be held on February 27-28, 2024, at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Training Centre of Excellence (TCE), Teshie, Accra.
The launch came off at the Schroeder Hall of the KAIPTC on Thursday 15 February 2024, with the Commandant, KAIPTC – Major General (Maj Gen) Richard Addo Gyane, and the Deputy Head of Delegation, German Embassy, Accra – Her Excellency (HE) Ms Sivine Jansen, as Chief Guests of the occasion, and an assemblage of media organizations from Ghana.
The KAPS Forum was instituted in 2019 to honour the memory of the late Mr. Kofi Annan –former Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), who focused on global peace, and on its third edition, the two-day KAPS ’24 Forum is themed “Migration and Societal Resilience in a Multipolar World Order: Addressing Conflicts and Building Peace in Africa”.
It is expected to assemble a large cohort of prominent figures, including HE Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo – President of Ghana; HE Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas – African Union’s (AU) High Representative for Silencing the Guns, former African Presidents and Heads of State, leading figures from the UN, AU, the European Union (EU), ECOWAS, and various national Heads of Immigration, to share their unique policy insights on migration.
The KAPS Forum will convene over 200 high-level delegates and specialists from various fields, including political leadership, governance, diplomacy, security, and academia.
KAPS ’24 is organized by the KAIPTC, in partnership with the Governments of Germany, Ghana and Norway, as wel as Germany’s Gesellschaft für International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the Kofi Annan Foundation.
Speaking to the theme, HE Sivine Jansen said KAIPTC is very well equipped for the task, as it has become an international institution that extends close collaboration between its research and training departments, with consistency in implementing lessons learnt, and has thus gained the status of one of the most developed peacekeeping training Centres in Africa.
According to World Development Report in 2023, 2.3% (184 million people), of the world’s population live outside of the country of their origin, with 37 million of these being refugees leaving their homes involuntarily, whiles the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) counted 62.2 million internally displaced persons in 2023, she said.
She continued to say that Germany’s Federal Foreign Office has over 10 years supported KAIPTC, technically and financially funded the KAPS Forum consistently since 2019, and in 2023, gave the TCE over 2 million Euros.
She said the Forum has become an important regional platform for politicians, media, and academics to dialogue and explore long to medium term solutions, to emerging security threats on the African continent.
Many of the displacement crises are caused by complex mix of climate and environmental change disasters, conflicts, which put a double strain, particularly on lower and middle income countries, as they have to force the refugees to move to other parts of the countries to create new homes.
Opining that there are opportunities in migration, in the context of a multipolar world order, HE Jansen said there has to be efforts to emphasize resilience survival, solidarity and adaptation, which must be complemented by driving peace, and locating the underlying drivers of conflicts, poverty, inequality, and governance failures.
For Africa, she said, migration has the advantage of making up for labour shortages, in businesses helping to creating jobs, and contributing to a richer and more diverse culture, at the same time running risks of exploitation and abuse, the difficulty of accessing basic social amenities and services, education and employment, and also for the people migrating to become susceptible to organised crime networks.
Tasking KAPS ’24 to focus on the positive effects that migration can bring, to improve the situation of people moved forcefully from their homes to places, she expressed aspiration that the 3rd Edition would provide African-led migration policies, and also sustainable solutions to the issues of migration.
Maj Gen RA Gyane, in his presentation, stated that the KAIPTC is implementing a new 5-Year Strategic Plan from 2024-2028, with a vision to remain the leading and preferred International Centre for training, education, research and policy advocacy that focuses on peaceful and secure Africa.
KAIPTC, which is prestigiously one of ECOWAS’ three TCEs, has a mission to provide globally recognised and bespoke capacity for all actors on African peace and security, through training, education, research, and policy dialogues to foster peace and stability in Africa.
He furthered that Africa is faced with armed conflicts forcing people to flee their homes, whiles climate change is increasingly causing droughts, floods, and extreme weather conditions, which are increasingly displacing communities, as weak governance and economic hardship continue to heavily increase poverty levels across board, with unemployment, lack of access to basic necessities, corruption, human right abuses and political repression continuing to influence young people especially, to seek opportunities elsewhere.
He concluded that the diverse task force that will assemble at KAPS ’24, will crack the code on migration’s impact on security, forging solutions and collaborations to prevent instability.
The maiden edition of the KAPS Forum took place on 4-5 September 2019, at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel, Accra, and the 2nd edition was on 8-9 December 2021, at the KAIPTC Centre, Teshie, Accra.
Dignitaries present included the Deputy Commandant, KAIPTC – Air Commodore David Akrong, Unit Heads of KAIPTC, and Staff of the Centre.
By Kofi Ampeah-Woode
