Effective collaboration among peacekeepers necessary - Arko-Dadzie

The Deputy Commandant of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Air Commodore George Arko-Dadzie, has called for effective collaboration among the various peacekeeping actors working in conflict-prone countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

He observed that some of them “worked in distinct and silo approach” that failed to provide “holistic and durable solutions” in countries facing complex crises.

Air Commodore Arko-Dadzie was speaking at the opening of a one-week course on the Humanitarian, Development and Peace (HDP) Nexus in Africa which is underway at the KAIPTC at Teshie in Accra.

Sponsored by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the course is aimed at enhancing the capacity of humanitarian, development and peace actors to work more coherently to attain sustainable peace in conflict and post-conflict settlements in Africa.

The HDP Nexus, introduced in the context of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, is an operational framework that seeks to bridge the gap between the three traditionally distinct areas of crisis intervention — humanitarian, development and peace.

Collaborative effort

Air Commodore Arko-Dadzie said although there had been an effort by the UN and the African Union (AU) to ensure collaboration among departments and institutions, the approaches adopted by the UN and the AU were intra-organisation specific.

He further said in spite of the HDP Nexus approach, which offered a pathway towards a greater coherence and sustainable approach to addressing complex crises, “much remains to be done to translate the concept into practice”.

“The implementation of the Nexus remains a continuous challenge because the sectors of humanitarian relief, development assistance and peace-building have for long worked separately, with different mandates, priorities and approaches,” he said.

He, therefore, urged the participants to bring their skills, expertise and best practices to bear in proffering workable recommendations to help tackle the existing challenges.

Attaining SDGs

The Political Attaché at the German Embassy, Mr Moritz Fischer, described the HDP Nexus as the “most progressive approach” to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mr Fischer said the German government recognised the implementation challenges of the HDP Nexus and, therefore, collaborated with the KAIPTC to commission a report to explore ways to bridge the cooperation gaps.

While pledging the readiness of his country to assist in the implementation of strategic initiatives to address the challenges, he urged the participants to “provide feedback and recommendations to enable us to maintain the high quality of training to meet international standards”.