ISS Seminar, Pretoria: The African Standby Force: Police Dimension and Future Peace Support Operations
Date: 2012-11-21
Venue: , ISS Pretoria Office Conference Room,
361 Veale Street,
Block C, Brooklyn Court
RSVP:
Bongeka Mdaniso
Email: [email protected];
Fax: +27 12 460
0997
Presented by the Training
for Peace (TfP) Project in the Conflict Management and Peacebuilding Division (CMPB), ISS Pretoria Office.
The African Standby Force
(ASF) is envisioned as a multidimensional force composed not only of the
military but also of police and civilian components.
The establishment of the
ASF started in earnest in 2003, but with the military in the lead. It was not
until 2008 that the first police officers were recruited into the African Union
(AU) Support Operations Division (PSOD), as part of the strategic level
management structure of the Planning Element (PLANELM). Since then, the AU PSOD
has undertaken initiatives to develop the policy framework of the police dimension,
including guidelines for AU Formed Police Units (FPU) and the AU Police Rapid
Deployment Capability Concept. These developments are also relevant to the police
component of the SADC Standby Force.
At the same time, however,
the AU has pursued second-track conflict resolution and management in deploying
peace missions mandated by its Peace and Security Council (PSC). A police
component of about 1 340 officers was for the first time deployed in 2004 as
part of the AU Mission in Sudan-Darfur (AMIS).
Currently, the AU Mission
in Somalia (AMISOM) also includes a police component of 231 officers. As a type
of future ASF deployment, the recent successes of AMISOM make it imperative to
take a critical look at the future role and functions of the ASF.
As part of plans to further
develop the capacity and expertise of the police component, the AU PSOD will be
conducting a Police Civilian Focused Exercise (POLCIVEX), NJIWA, in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, in October/November 2012. The exercise will be in prelude to
Exercise AMANI AFRICA II, which is expected to mark the ASF’s full operational
capability and operationalisation in 2015.
All the indications
therefore are that the police dimension of the ASF is increasingly becoming a
fully integral part of a multidimensional ASF, although institutional, capacity
and other logistical challenges remain to be addressed.
This ASF seminar,
the second of its kind in the past two months, seeks to provide a forum to
discuss such questions as: What is the progress made thus far in the
operationalisaton of the police dimension of the ASF? What are the main
challenges being encountered in the process and how are they being addressed? And,
what role will the police dimension of the ASF be able to play in Africa’s future
complex humanitarian emergencies, given lessons learnt from AMISOM’s
operational challenges and successes?
CHAIRPERSON
- Gen. Mike
Fryer, Former Police Commissioner, AMIS & AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur
(UNAMID)
KEY SPEAKERS:
- C/Supt Gariba
Sayibu, Police Training
Officer, ASF, Addis Ababa
- ACP Daniel Nyambabe, Director SADC Police, Gaborone
- Supt Ben Agordzo (PhD), Police
Training & Development Coordinator, AMISOM
DISCUSSANT:
- Festus B.
Aboagye, Senior Research Fellow and Head, Training for Peace, ISS
ISS Rule: Participants are
free to use the information presented, but neither the identity nor the
affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participants, may be
revealed without his/her express permission.
