The East African Community (EAC) is beefing up its Early Warning Unit and mediation capacity in an effort to improve regional peace and security mechanisms; a top official of the bloc has informed.
The community’s Deputy Secretary General charged with Political Federation affairs, Dr Julius Tangus Rotich, said this was prompted by greater attention in the follow up of issues related and gains achieved in the promotion of democracy, good governance, the rule of law as well as protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
He said this while opening a three-day quarterly technical meeting between the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities held in Arusha recently. The conference discussed operationalisation of Africa’s early warning systems.
“Your meeting is taking place amid increased new peace and security challenges in the EAC region. Terrorism, human and illicit drugs trafficking, ethnic and inter-communal violence, religious tensions, piracy and money laundering are rising to alarming levels.
The effects of climate change with its negative impacts on food security and resource scarcity have their own toll in this grim picture.
Your combined work with other stakeholders is expected to help curtail the negative effects of these vices,” he told the conference.
These challenges, he said, were exacerbated by consolidation of the Customs Union to turn the region into a single customs territory and the implementation of the Common Market Protocol to ensure free movement of people, labour, services and capital as well as protection of cross-border investment.
However, security challenges were not a preserve of East Africa alone. “The continent has, in the past two years, seen some of the worst peace and security challenges, mostly is the so-called “Arab Spring,” said Dr Rotich.
“The ramifications and spill over of these crises, combined with the effects of the international economic crisis, are aggravating new peace and security concerns on the continent.”
The situation, he said, had necessitated harmonisation and co-ordination, as required in the Memorandum of Understanding on co-operation in the area of peace and security between the AU, the Regional Economic Communities and the Co-ordinating Mechanisms of the Regional Standby Brigades of eastern and northern Africa.
Regular meetings are therefore held to review progress toward the operationalisation of the early warning systems and to share and exchange information as well as knowledge, lessons learned and best practices.
The meetings also provide a forum to develop co-ordinated strategies, to train together, enhance mutual capacities with a view to promote and maintain peace, security and stability on the continent.
The overall aim of all these efforts is to help anticipate and prevent conflicts within and among the member states of the African Union, informed Dr Rotich.
This is the second time the EAC hosts the conference, the first time being in April 2009.
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