{A total of 150 civilians who qualified to work with the East African Standby Force are awaiting recruitment and integration to support the regional force and police in peace recovery processes.}
Ngoga Eugene, Director for Africa in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and the coordinator of civilians forces in Rwanda’s East African Standby Force (EASF) revealed this yesterday in a three-day meeting that kicked off yesterday aimed at gauging Rwanda’s readiness in deploying civilians.
The meeting was attended by delegates from Kenya in the secretarial of East African Standby Force.
“On behalf of Rwanda, we have 150 civilians ready but who have not yet been approved on the list of East African Standby Force. We already have 64 on the list of African Union’s approved civilians who may be replaced.We always train many civilians to be ready for intervention,” said Ngoga.
Civilians support the military and police in various activities of peace recovery, protecting children and women and help in reintegration of people among other relief activities.
Rwanda is among ten countries comprising East African Standby Force to which every member state is required to provide at least 60 civilians.
Joshua Kariuki, EASF coordinator said the civilians will be approved after evaluating their capacity.
To be selected among standby civilians to intervene in peace recovery, a person is required to have at least a second university degree and have at least seven years of experience in peace recovery activities.
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