On 09 July 2007 Dr Leonard Kapungu, the Executive Director of the Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa (CPIA), based in Zimbabwe, visited ACCORD House where he met with ACCORD’s Deputy Director, Jerome Sachane, ACCORD Senior Advisor, Tor Sellstrom, and ACCORD Senior Researcher Karanja Mbugua.
On 4 July Franco de Sena Llobera Serra and Raul Menedez, from an NGO called Aprodel which is based in Spain, visited ACCORD House. Aprodel is a membership organisation of development workers.
On 7 and 8 May the Director of Operations from the Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa (CPIA), Rev. Max Chigwida, visited ACCORD House accompanied by Petronella Mapfiro, the CPIA’s Culture of Peace Programme Officer and Executive Assistant.
The General Manager for Programmes at ACCORD, Ms. Pravina Makan-Lakha, will be attending the UN affiliated University for Peace (UPEACE) Africa Programme Consultative Meeting, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 26-29 March 2007. The meeting will assess the impact and direction of future programme activities now that the initial five-year development phase of the Africa Programme has been completed.
ACCORD has been invited to the launching event of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation on 31 October and a Roundtable discussion on 1 November, for a group of leaders from the academic community. Under the direction of Dr. Mo Ibrahim, one of Africa’s leading entrepreneurs, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has been established to recognise and reward excellence in African leadership, and promote understanding of the challenges and opportunities for good governance in Africa.
The Research Unit at ACCORD will be hosting a Round Table Discussion where Professor T.V. Paul, a distinguished Canadian Scholar, will present preliminary findings from a book he’s currently authoring on the impact of globalization on state security (elaboration below on the theme of the book).
ACCORD Associate, Nicholas (Fink) Haysom was appointed Director of Political Affairs for United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on 17 May 2007. ACCORD has worked with Fink over many years, including having him serve as an advisor to our Constitutionalism Programme, and more recently in March 2006 when a delegation of senior Iraqi Parliamentarians visited ACCORD House as part of a study tour of South Africa.
On Sunday, 6 May the 3rd Annual Mahatma Gandhi Salt March was held in Durban. The Founder and Executive Director of ACCORD, Vasu Gounden, who is a trustee of the Gandhi Development Trust, was invited to be the co-director of programmes for the event. The 22km march began at the Phoenix Settlement in Inanda and ended at Battery Beach in Durban, where Gandhi’s ashes were immersed into the sea.
Ms Pravina Makan-Lakha, ACCORD’s Programmes’ Co-ordinator, attended a workshop on ‘The Role of Leading Edge NGO’s in the Next Decade’ which took place in Kenya from 26-27 October. The workshop was hosted by the TROCAIRE East Africa Regional Office in collaboration with ABANTU for Development, and aimed to reflect on the roles played by NGOs from a historical perspective, with a focus into the future.
The African Peace Support Trainers association (APSTA), is launching its new website - http://www.apsta-africa.org - today. The Association was established in Pretoria, South Africa, in October 2002, as the African Chapter of the International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centres (IAPTC).
