2cd Edition of Apsaco, « Peacekeeping Operations across Africa : trends and challenges »
PRESS RELEASE – Rabat, May 16th, 2018 More than 90 armed conflicts are ongoing across the continent, a stable figure for the past three years. Half of the 14 United Nations peacekeeping operations in the world are taking place in Africa. The biggest in the world is deployed since 1999 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with some 21 500 military, police and civilian personel.
After a first edition in 2017 on «African Union : what are the possible options for strategic autonomy ?», this second African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO) is again organized by the OCP Policy Center in Rabat.
Peacekeeping operations in Africa
This year’s theme will be debated by XX participants, by invitation only. How far has the reform process launched by the UN gone ? What are the complex challenges facing these operations ? What lessons can be learned from the inconsticencies of the past UN missions in Srebrenica and Rwanda ? How do African States engage through the UN operations and the African Union effort to gain autonomy in the peacekeeping responsibility ?
Six panels will discuss possible answers, from political and strategic aspects of peacekeeping operations to the achievements and challenges ahead. The role of the African Union will be debated, as well as the protection of civilians and the soldiers deployed and the ways to better engage civil societies. And, last but not least, a North-South cross-section view of peacekeeping operations is scheduled.
Political and military officers
Over 40 speakers will participate in APSACO, with Mahamat Saleh Annadif, former minister of Foreign Affairs of Chad and Head of Minusma (Mali) and Mongi Hamdi, Former minister of Foreign Affairs of Tunisia and former Head of Minusma and three ambassadors : Maged Abdelaziz, Permanent Observer for the League of Arab States at the United Nations, Tewolde Gebremeskel, Peace & Security Director of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo, President of the NATO Defense College Foundation.
General Yohannes Gebremeskel, Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Security Force will attend, as well as General Birame Diop, Chief of Staff, Senegal Air Force, General Dominique Trinquand, Former Head fo the French Military Mission to the UN and NATO, General Jasbir Singh Lidder, Former UN Force Commander and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Sudan, Colonel Issa Coulibaly, Director, School of Peacekeeping Alioune Blondin Beye and Brigadier General Irvine Nil-Ayitey Aryeetey, Deputy Commandant at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).
High profile international experts and academics
Will also participate Samuel Gahigi, Team Leader for West Africa and the Sahel at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Adreddine El Harti, Principal Security Advisor at the UNDP, Hugo Sada, Special Advisor to the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa and Deo Gumba, Regional organized crime observatory coordinator for East Africa (ENACT, ISS).
Among the academics expected, to name a few : Ashraf Swelam, Director General of the Cairo Center for Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping in Africa, Gustavo de Carvalho, Senior Researcher at ISS Africa, Michel Luntumbue, Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security (GRIP), Zhou Yuyuan, Senior Fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS), Chris Alden, Professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), David Ambrosetti, researcher at the French Center for Ethiopian Studies (FCES), Frederik Rosén, Director of the Nordic Center for Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict (NCCHAC) and Ewan Lawson, Senior Research Fellow for Military Influence at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI, UK).
Press contacts :
• Hanane Harrath, Communication Director of the OCP Policy Center, Hanane.Harrath@ocppc.ma + 212 537 270 918
Website : www.ocppc.ma | Mobile App : http://mbl.ma/ocppc | OCP Policy Center on RePEc.
• Sabine Cessou, Research Fellow, OCP Policy Center,
scessou@gmail.com
Tel : + 336 70 87 20 05
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About the OCP Policy Center
Launched in 2014 in Rabat with 39 associate fellows from the South and the North, the OCP Policy Center wants to share knowledge and to contribute to a richer reflexion on economics and international relations. Through a Southern perspective on the main questions at stake for developing countries, it aims at helping strategic decisions processes in a meaningful way, through its four research programs : agriculture, environment ans food security ; economics and social development ; raw material economics and finance ; geopolitics and international relations.
www.ocppc.ma