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African Peace and Security Annual Conference - APSACO

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9:00 am June 2018

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5:00 pm June 2018
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Peacekeeping Operations across  Africa: Trends and Challenges

By invitation only

During the first two decades of the third millennium, the United Nations (UN) launched a peacekeeping reform process through reports, doctrines, initiatives, and institutional reforms. In the wake of this, Secretary-General António Guterres pledged to the Security Council on April 7, 2017 to improve United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs), confirming that UN action in this field was at a crossroads, because the PKOs "... often seem at bay, overwhelmed by the magnitude of their task".

Peacekeeping certainly suffers from a wide variety of challenges, both political and legal, along with the complexity of operational environments, the intrusion of the asymmetric threat (terrorist acts and organized crime), as well as weakness in terms of human and material resources. This also comes in an international context marked by budget restrictions and declining enrollment.

Nevertheless, Peacekeeping is not an illusion, and still plays an important role, especially on the African continent. First, the UN model remains the best suited to the nature of international relations, driven by the centrality of the national interest and the quest for power. It is also the legitimate model for protecting civilians, preventing conflict and working for stability. The Syrian crisis may not have caused the ongoing human tragedy had peacekeepers been deployed, just as in the case of the tragic precedents of Srebrenica and Rwanda where the inconsistencies of peacekeeping have been found.

Peacekeeping is also part of the foreign policy instruments through which States and international organizations, including the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU), commit themselves to the international community. In Morocco, the contribution to the PKOs is a constant of the country’s foreign policy. The kingdom has participated, since the Congolese crisis in 1960, in a dozen operations either under the aegis of the UN or in support of NATO and the EU, which makes it a constant contributor in the concert of nations. For its part, the AU seems to be engaged in a process of ownership of peacekeeping mechanisms in Africa, through the strengthening of its autonomy and the establishment of a common framework with the UN and the EU.

In view of all these considerations, the conference aims to look at the prospects and opportunities of the "spectrum of peace and security", ranging from prevention to stabilization by exploring ways for effective protection of vulnerable people. The conference organizers wish to focus on the intersection between the UN (politico-strategic and operational dimensions) and the AU (role in the management of African conflicts) in order to update on the one hand the complexity of maintaining peace in its current configuration, and on the other hand, the challenges of the AU ownership of peacekeeping and stabilization.

 

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Agenda 

Download Arabic Version

 

June 18, 2018

14:30 – 14:45

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
- Rachid El Houdaigui, Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center

14:45 – 15:30

CONVERSATION WITH: 

Chair:    
- Youssef Amrani, Chargé de Mission, Royal Cabinet, Kingdom of Morocco

Speakers:     
- Mahamat Saleh Annadif, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chad, Special Representative for Mali and Head of MINUSMA 

15:30 – 16:45

POLICY PANEL 1: THE POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC ASPECTS OF PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

Chair:
- Hugo Sada, Special Adviser, Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa

Speakers:

- Fernando Aguilera, Senior Analyst, NATO Strategic Direction South (NSD-S) Hub
- Brigadier General Irvine Nii-Ayitey Aryeetey, Deputy Commandant, Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC)
- Robert Dossou, Former President, Constitutional Court of Benin
- General Yohannes Gebremeskel, Force Commander, the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA)

16:45 – 17:15

Coffee Break

17:15 – 18:30

PANEL 1: ONGOING PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS: ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES AHEAD

Chair:
- Ewan Lawson, Senior Research Fellow for Military Influence, RUSI

Speakers:
- Chris Alden, Professor, London School of Economics
- Samuel Gahigi, Team Leader for West Africa and the Sahel, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations
- Deo Gumba, Regional organized crime observatory coordinator – East Africa, ENACT, Institute for Security Studies (ISS)
- Ambassador Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo, President, NATO Defense College Foundation

June 19, 2018

09:30 – 10:45

PANEL 2:  PROTECTING CIVILIANS DURING PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

Chair:
- Badreddine El harti, Principal Security Sector Reform Adviser, UNDP

Speakers:
- Namie Di Razza, Research Fellow, Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations, International Peace Institute (IPI)
- Sara Rendtorff-Smith, Formerly, Protection of Civilians Officer, DPKO, Interim POC Advisor, MINUSCA
- Frederik Rosén, Director, Nordic Center for Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict

10:45 – 11:15

Coffee Break

11:45 – 13:00

PANEL 3: PROTECTION AND CAPACITY BUILDING OF PEACEKEEPERS

Chair:
- Rachid El Houdaigui, Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center

Speakers:
- Colonel Issa Coulibaly, Director, School of Peacekeeping Alioune Blondin Beye
- General Jasbir Singh Lidder, Former UN Force Commander and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Sudan
- Colonel Raul Rivas, Chief of Plans and Strategy Division, US Africa Command
- Jaïr Van Der Lijn, Director of the Peace Operations and Conflict Management Programme, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

14:30 – 15:45

PANEL 4: THE ROLE OF THE AFRICAN UNION IN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

Chair:

- Ambassador Mohammed Loulichki, Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center, Former Ambassador of Morocco to the United Nations

Speakers:
- Michel Luntumbue, Researcher, Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security (GRIP)
- Michelle Ndiaye, Director, Africa Peace and Security Programme, Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS)
- Zhou Yuyuan, Senior Fellow, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS)

15:45 – 17:00

PANEL 5: HOW TO ENGAGE CIVIL SOCIETY AT LARGE? 

Chair:

- Jalal Abdel-Latif, Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center, Head of Governance and Human Security Cluster, UNECA

Speakers:

- Gustavo de Carvalho, Senior Researcher, Peace Operations and Peacebuilding, Institute for Security Studies (ISS)
- Christine Desouches, Professor, Panthéon-Sorbonne University
- Ahmed Rhazaoui, Former Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General and Director of the UN Office for West Africa

 

17:00 – 17:30

Coffee Break

17:30 – 18:45

POLICY PANEL 2: NORTH-SOUTH CROSS VIEWS OF PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

Chair:
Kristin De Peyron, Head of Division, Pan-African Affairs, European External Action Service (EEAS) 

Speakers:
- General Birame Diop, Chief of Staff, Senegal Air Force 
- Colonel Raul Rivas, Chief of Plans and Strategy Division, US Africa Command
- General Dominique Trinquand, Former Head, French Military Mission to the UN and NATO

18:45 – 19:00

CLOSING REMARKS
Karim El Aynaoui, Managing Director, OCP Policy Center