SaferAfrica

SaferAfrica Review April 2005 - March 2006

In the period April 2005 to March 2006 SaferAfrica celebrated its fifth anniversary since foundation. Perhaps because we are above all a practical research and technical assistance organization, we were too engrossed on work to take our celebration to the public relations arena but a meeting of the international advisory board was held to mark the event in March 2006. Now to the work!

At national level we developed and delivered activities in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Lesotho, Tanzania, Angola, Rwanda, Mali, Senegal, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Nicaragua, Colombia, Argentina and Cambodia. At regional level we operated closely with the RECSA (regional centre on small arms) of the Great Lakes Region and the Horn and with the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Committee as well as the ECOWAS Secretariat in Nigeria. Continentally several programmes of SaferAfrica provided technical support and assistance to the AU Commission in Addis Ababa with the International Peace and Cooperation Programme engaging on the PCRD discussions and the Safety and Security programme engaged with the AU in the process for the generation of a SALW common position and the operationalisation of the Terrorism Convention. We also continued our support to the NEPAD secretariat through the International Peace and Cooperation Programme and continued to support the Interpol sub-regional bureaux in Africa through our Safety and Security work.

Internationally, we assisted several initiatives most notably the arms transfer conference in Tanzania as a Finland- Tanzanian initiative; the Stockholm initiative for Disarmament, demobilization and Reconstruction, and the emerging EU policy on SALW. The most onerous work of the year was undertaken in support of Africa in its participation of the UNPoA processes of 2005 and 2006 (one biannual meeting of states in 2005 and the preparatory committee on the PoA review in January 2006). Several UN agencies were also partners to SaferAfrica activities including different collaboration with the UNDDA, UNIDIR, UNOPS, UNDP, and UNU among others.

In our SurPaz (south-south) work we were engaged in Colombia and Argentina fundamentally on governance and development work impacting on poverty reduction and disarmament needs. The key product of the year was the assistance provided to the Civil Society Forum of Latin America in the preparation for the OAS Summit of 2005 and the creation of the SurPaz (progress with security) website.

Institutionally this period (April 2005 - March 2006) was marked by several name changes in the refocusing and divisions in our programming, thus the AU/NEPAD programme became the International Peace and Cooperation Programme; the Arms and Disarmament programme became the Safety And Security Programme, and all operations with civil society participatory processes including the addition of a Parliamentarian capacity building work, capacity for electoral commissions and our micro development work became fused in a new programme area entitled Governance and Development. Lastly, the original South-South programme became the SurPaz activity line.

A special mention must be provided to the Tanzania National Action Plan which is also run as a SaferAfrica programme area since 2001. In 2005 the EU Commission – that funds the programme – undertook an external evaluation of all the African projects including the one administered by SaferAfrica and issued an evaluation which indicates amply that the objectives of this programme have been achieved successfully. Equally we are very proud of our continued cooperation on arms destruction between the South African Police Service and the government of Mozambique – Operations Rachel. The results of the two operations we undertook in partnership in 2005 yielded enormous dividends to practical peace and safety.

Our donor pool continued to expand at institutional, programmatic and project level. The type of activities covered with donor support serve a broad range of issues from destruction of illicit arms, micro-development for poverty reduction, facilitation of policy and of consensus, planning and enhancement of operational support, capacity building, training and the provision of expert technical support to governmental and non governmental bodies.

The year also saw a plethora of publications both of SaferAfrica and partner (double logo) outputs, and their inclusion in our www.saferafrica.org website which is currently being updated as a result. We are continuing to reside in our lovely Arcadia Grade II listed home of Trelawney House although this is invariably getting smaller by the day!

Virginia Gamba
Institutional Budget Holder
and Director of SurPaz activities