Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) - Civil national focal points reps updated on latest developments |21 February 2017
The Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) is holding its three-day National Focal Point Workshop and Civilian Component Meeting at the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Resort .
The meeting is an opportunity to bring focal points together to be updated on what’s happening at the EASF headquarters which is based in Nairobi, Kenya, as well as what is happening in the member states, especially towards the rostering of experts in the regional roster and the training processes that are being facilitated at their school in Nairobi. It looked at the activity plan for 2017 and how far they have reached.
The EASF was established by the African Union in 2002 at a summit in Durban in South Africa where African leaders took a decision that there was a need in taking care of Africa’s challenges to peace and security. They decided there would never again be another tragedy like in Rwanda in 1994. EASF is of five regional standby forces established under the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). It has been promoting peace for over ten years by being able to respond to crisis in eastern Africa. It takes a comprehensive approach towards peace and security providing military, police and civilian components.
The civilian component was the topic of discussion in yesterday’s meeting. There are ten member states and they are Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Seychelles, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Comoros.
The mandate of the civilian component in an EASF operation is to support the police or the military. The civilian role is about the leadership as all missions in the whole world are headed by civilians. The civilians also provide expertise especially in peace building, dialogue, human rights watchdog, humanitarian functions, the legal aspects – just to name some.
Present at the opening of the workshop yesterday were the Minister for Home Affairs Mitcy Larue; the Commissioner of Police Reginald Elizabeth; deputy chief of the Seychelles Defence Forces Col. Clifford Roseline; Head of Civilian Component, EASF, Planning Element Steve Lalande; Ceps chairperson Jules Houareau; Civil National Focal Point country representatives, the department of Foreign Affairs and non-governmental organisations.
In his opening remark, Ambassador Claude Morel, representing the department of Foreign Affairs, said EASF provides assurances that there is a regional mechanism which may be called upon if necessary, in resolving conflicts.
He said during the three days participants will have the opportunity to contribute to the works of EASF from the perspective of member states and trusts their works as national focal points will contribute to further strengthening both the EASF and the African Standby capacity rosters with experts in the field of peace, support operations, substantive and support areas such as elections, humanitarian affairs, security sector reforms, to name some.
“The integrated and multi-dimensional nature of EASF requires that civilians work alongside the military and police of the standby force,” said Mr Morel.
Mr Lalande said the workshop is a wonderful opportunity to share information, experiences and also to make suggestions on future activities to be organised. And also to make any kind of recommendations that can push forward the policy organs, meaning the people that make decisions from member states.
“This is a very important event for us because we have three components of EASF. We need to complement each other as we need to work together during a conflict. Therefore we need to find ways so we can strengthen this collaboration, this integration and also to see where the value-addition the civilian component contributes when it is deployed in peace support operations. So this meeting will help us identify all these issues we need to escalate to higher level so that decisions will be taken so we can enhance the work of the civilian component and the national focal point from member states,” Mr Lalande said.
