Foreign policy should aim at developing institutional capacity – Dr Chambas

Foreign policy should aim at developing the capacity of institutions and actors involved in conflict prevention because of the potential of building a more structured, result-oriented and mutually beneficial partnership for peace.

Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), who made the call, said diplomacy played a critical role in establishing and maintaining partnerships for peace both nationally and internationally.

He said inter-state engagements in pursuit of peace could harness significant benefits from expertise and resources that lay within the diplomatic service.

“We should systematically leverage such experience and expertise in national peace architectures and initiatives,” Dr Chambas stated in his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations Ghana public lecture in Accra.

Speaking on the topic; “An Agenda for Building Partnerships for Peace in West Africa and the Sahel: Challenges and Opportunities,” Dr Chambas said Ghana had an impressive track record in contributing to peace and security in the Region and beyond.

This was either through the services of her sons and daughters or through regional and international institutions.

He said this partnership with other states within the comity of nations had made Ghana stronger, more prosperous and safer.

In that regard, Ghana’s diplomacy could play a key role in sharing the Ghanaian model of conflict prevention to the Region and beyond.

He said as stakeholders focused on threats in the Region, some of which were existential, they should be constantly reminded that the West African and Sahel Region was not only a collection of states, but also a collection of societies.

“For sustainable peace, therefore, we should be a community of states on the one hand, and communities and states on the other, tied together by a consultative and inclusive social contract, which must not only be legal but also legitimate,” he stated.

“States are indispensable and unavoidable for preventing conflict and sustaining peace, but we cannot achieve peace by statutory fiat. Partnership between state and society is necessary, and civil society is an essential bridge.”

Dr Chambas said inclusion remained central in partnerships from both a political and strategic perspective.

This entailed wide representation of the traditionally less representative groups in the society, including women and youth, the less conventional peace actors such as the private sector, which remained a partner with an added value in terms of resource mobilisation.

He noted that no less important were customary actors, which had long history in communities.