Three-day pilot training for civil society groups in West Africa opens in Accra

A three-day pilot training on Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) for civil society actors and multi-dimensional peace support personnel in West Africa began in Accra on Tuesday.

The training was organised by West African Civil Society Institute (WACSI), in collaboration with the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC).

It was supported by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), International Coalition for Responsibility to Protect (ICRtoP) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).

Mr. Justice Francis Emile Short, former Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHIRAJ), said since the birth of Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) in 2005 at the United Nations World Summit, the norm had consistently faced questions concerning its goals and objectives as well as the genuineness of its intentions to halt mass atrocities.

He said lack of information and understanding of the norm among various groups had further limited the achievement of its objectives to halt mass atrocities and served violations and abuses of human rights.

Mr. Justice Short said despite the existence of RtoP in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), conflict prevention and security architecture, the responsibility to prevent, react and rebuild was central for security in the ECOWAS conflicts prevention framework (ECPF).

He said the controversies, misunderstanding and misinformation about the norm had not allowed policy makers to reach concrete decision on its implementation, adding “Even the few governments that have signed onto it in West Africa, implementing the norm remains difficult due to many factors including the lack of political will and capacity to implement by respective governments”.

Mr. Justice Short noted that various conflicts witnessed in the West African Sub-Region in the last decade including Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and recently in Mali and Guinea Bissau were conflicts which could have been avoided by the preventive mechanisms of RtoP, had it been adopted.

He said the low level of understanding the norms, the historical context and intent were currently the major challenges confronting the promotion of the RtoP norm within civil society in the sub-region, thus making capacity development and information sharing highly important.

Nana Asantewaa Afadzinu, Executive Director of WACSI, Ghana, said RtoP which was developed as a toolkit was to provide clarity on how civil society organisations could reach out to government, Parliament, media and other stakeholders to push for concrete measures to prevent and halt atrocities.

She said the training was expected to provide useful insights on how to design the replication of the training initiative to other target groups in the sub-regions and other parts of the continent.

Nana Afadzinu noted that civil society could play a crucial role in the implementation of the RtoP norm when the public was well informed on its importance and how to engage the government and policy-makers to use the norm to stop mass atrocities in West Africa.

WACSI was established by Open Society Initiative for West Africa(OSIWA) and Soros Foundation Network (SFN) to enhance the capacity of civil society in the West African Sub-Region to bridge the institutional and operational gaps identified in civil societies.

WACSI serves as a resource centre and engaged in training, research, documentation, and policy dialogue for civil society organisations in West Africa with its advocacy work conducted through its policy dialogue process and bringing together stakeholders to deliberate on topical issues that affected West African States.**