The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Small Arms Survey and National Defence College (NDC) are collaborating to train officers on weapons and ammunitions management in peace support operations.
The 3-Day Regional Pilot Training Course tagged; Making Peace Operations More Effective (MPOME), has 13 participants from seven West African countries and members of staff of ECOWAS.
The Commandant of NDC, Rear Adm. Markson Kadiri, said that the course was focused at promoting and building a collaborative agenda with the UN and ECOWAS to reduce diversion of arms and ammunition from peace operations.
Kadiri said that the course would address the observed gaps in the capacities of officers and the relevant personnel to perform effectively in the area under study.
The course, according to him, was geared towards improving practices to manage both contingent-owned equipment as well as recovered material.
“Thus far, working together, both the Small Arms Survey and the NDC have been able to set out ideas for designing training modules for strengthening these practices. This Pilot course will therefore seek to operationalise and test some of these modules,’’ he said.
He said that the participants would acquire relevant skills to develop a higher reasoning and interpretation of best practices, in the realm of weapons and ammunition management in peace operations.
“As the pilot state, you have the onerous task of setting the pace for others to follow. Therefore enjoin you to take advantage of these 3-days of education to improve yourselves to contribute to your services and agencies,” he said.
Mr Eric Berman, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Small Arms Survey, said that the training was developed on the request of ECOWAS to take advantage of the Small Arms Convention.
Berman said that the training was also developed to create effective checks and balances to help reduce the incidence of lost of arms and ammunition in peace operations.
He said that many peacekeepers had often come under attacks in recent time leading to loss of arms, adding that weapons had been ceased in great numbers.
“We have met and developed this course and in the next three days, practitioners and planners in peace keeping will be discussing how to improve on our current practices,” he said.
Mr Ahoba Aipu, Head of Small Arms Division, Directorate of Peacekeeping and Regional Security of ECOWAS, said the training was to formalise the implementation of Article 8 on peace support operations in the region.
Aipu said that the course would be a sort of basis for the member states to take decisions on the diversion or loss of arms and ammunition.
According to him, ECOWAS wants all the member states to be in line with the commission which means that every member state must fill a form before sending their troops for peace support operation.
“This form will allow ECOWAS to know better if there are diversions of arms and ammunition because diversion is the major problem.
“Sometimes when you send troops for peacekeeping operation, you don’t have the data of the arms they carry and if you don’t know what they took to the field you cannot easily determine whether there is loss or damage,’’ he said. (NAN)
