ECOWAS Commission Organizes an In-Mission Training for Personnel of the Security Stabilization Support Mission in Guinea-Bissau

The ECOWAS Commission today began an ECOWAS Staff Officers Course for Personnel of the ECOWAS Stabilization Support Mission in Guinea-Bissau (SSMGB). The Course is being coordinated by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), held at Azalai-Dunia Hotel in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.
This collaborative human capacity-building effort assembled 46 (41 male/5 female) participants drawn from the SSMGB and personnel of the Defence and Security Forces of Guinea-Bissau.

The aim of the Course is to acquaint the newly rotated staff of the SSMGB on the ECOWAS Staff Officers Handbook which provides guidelines for standard operating procedures, knowledge and skill for Mission mandate implementation and orientation on compliance and accountability.
Speaking during the opening ceremony, the Commandant of the KAIPTC, Maj Gen Richard Addo-Gyane, welcomed the participants and facilitators, mentioning the importance of this course and its alignment to the Centre’s strategic plans of being an ECOWAS designated Training Centre of Excellence for regional peace and security training.

In his statement, the representative of the German Embassy in Guinea-Bissau Mr. Carsten Willie, expressed appreciation for the longstanding collaboration between the BMZ, the ECOWAS Commission, and the KAIPTC in providing capacity for the ECOWAS Standby Force. He further recounted the changing nature of conflict trends and commended the tremendous efforts of the ECOWAS Commission in dealing with them through capacity building whilst linking the course as direct German support to Regional Security.

Before declaring the training opened, the ECOWAS Commission Resident Representative to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Her Excellency Ngozi Ukeje thanked the KAIPTC for their support to the Commission by churning out numerous courses, research, and policy briefs that speak to the ECOWAS regional peace and security architecture. And in particular, she emphasized on the in-mission training courses which lays the foundation and framework for peace operations at the regional level. She thanked the training team who were drawn from the ECOWAS Commission, independent experts and the KAIPTC for their contributions. She also thanked the EPSAO Project for the technical support to ECOWAS and the KAIPTC.

This training is organised with the financial support of the European Union (EU) and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), through the GIZ-ECOWAS Peace and Security Architecture and Operations (EPSAO) Project.