ACCORD participated in the African Standby Capacity (ASC) Core Group Meeting on 03 February 2021. The Core Group Meeting was attended by the Capability Development Unit and Policy Development Unit of the African Union Peace Support Operations Division and technical implementation partners of the ASC: Centre for International Peace Operations (ZIF), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ-Ethiopia) and the United Nations office to the African Union (UNOAU) and ACCORD.
The ASC Core Group meets once annually to review the activities of the preceding year and to plan activities for the year ahead. The meeting further provides partners the opportunity to make financial commitments on areas to support as guided by the available resources outlined in the work plan. This year’s Core Group Meeting focused on the revamping of the ASC database, the ASC Workforce Planning assessment on the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the completion of the Selection Guidelines Manuals for Roster Focal Points, Gender Mainstreaming Training of Roster Focal Points, reviewing of the ASC Roster to update the availability status of experts, outreach and marketing of the ASC and the current transition of responsibilities of lead technical implementation partner of the ASC from ZIF to ACCORD which will be completed by June 2021.
Through the Training for Peace (TfP) Programme, ACCORD’s overall objective in participating in the Core Group Meeting and ASC activities is to support the AU’s concerted efforts at building a pool of ready-to-deploy civilian experts and to support the rostering and training of these civilian experts. The ASC roster was inaugurated in 2015 and is the civilian dimension of the African Standby Force, which is a critical element of the African Peace and Security Architecture. The roster serves the deployment needs of the AUC as well as its participating RECs and RMs into peace operations. The Core Group Meeting was attended by ACCORD’s Peace Support Operations Cluster.
The TfP Programme at ACCORD is an initiative funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
