Sensitization of Senior Management and Law Enforcement Agency Workshop
SaferAfrica in partnership with the Regional Centre on Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa (RECSA) and various National Focal Points on the Control and Management of firearms in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa conducted six training workshops. The workshops occurred in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa from 14 – 20 October 2006), Sudan (Khartoum from28 – 30 October 2006) and Eritrea (Asmara from 13 – 15 December 2006). The workshops were aimed at senior government officials who are members of the National Focal Point and instructors from law enforcement training institutions dealing with issues relating to small arms and light weapons
Mandate to organize the workshop
The capacity building for the law enforcement agencies was planned on the basis of RECSA Work Plan 2006-2011 that was approved by the Extra-Ordinary Council of Ministers’ Meeting held in Kampala on the 25 April, 2006 and as emphasized by the Second Ministerial Review conference held in Nairobi on 20 and 21 April 2004, the Third Ministerial Review Conference held in Nairobi from 20 to 21 June 2005, and Articles 3, 4, 5, 6,7 , 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 of the Nairobi Protocol for prevention, control and reduction of small arms and light weapons in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa.
Justification
Member States are required by the Nairobi Declaration and the Nairobi Protocol to establish National Focal Points (NFPs) which are in turn required to develop National Action Plans (NAPs) for the Control and Management of fire arms, in collaboration with RECSA. To be effective, NPFs have to be properly constituted with government inter-agency and civil society representation, and given the administrative, operational and logistic capacity to conduct its daily affairs, which include substantial national, regional and international coordination and liaison.
Some NPFs are however not able to fulfil their mandates due to inadequate political will and support from relevant government officials who may not be adequately briefed on issues surrounding the problem of the proliferation of illicit small arms and light weapons, the provisions of the Nairobi Declaration and the Nairobi Protocol and other similar Protocols, and the expectations of their National Focal Point. In addition to this, the NFPs face their own constraints such as a lack of a full time coordinator, inadequate resources (including personnel, equipment, finances, adequate office space), skills and expertise, inter-agency cooperation and irregular meetings of the NFP Executive Committee. All these factors hinder the NFP to carry out its responsibilities and functions in an integrated and coordinated manner.
Purpose
This series of workshops familiarized senior government officials with issues of the problem of the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, the Nairobi Declaration and the Nairobi Protocol and related initiatives, the functions and expectations of NFPs, and their responsibilities in empowering NFPs to carry out their responsibilities, and also to equip senior management and practitioners with the necessary skills to implement the Nairobi Declaration, the Nairobi Protocol and other relevant regional and international instruments as part of a multi- disciplinary team.
Workshop overviews
In each country, two training courses were presented back-to-back. The first dealt was a one-day sensitization workshop for senior management and the second a two-day Law Enforcement Agency Workshop.
Location |
Date |
Photos |
14 – 20 October 2006 |
|
|
Sudan |
28 – 30 October 2006 |
|
Eritrea |
13 – 15 December 2006 |
Photo |
- One-day sensitization workshop for senior management: In the Senior Management Sensitization Workshops there were on average 30 participants comprising Permanent Secretaries, Heads/Representatives of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies constituting the National Focal Point, and others drawn from regional offices and relevant national institutions.
- Two-day Law Enforcement Agency Workshop: The Law Enforcement Agency Workshops took between two days to complete. Approximately 30 participants per workshop were drawn from training institutions of relevant ministries, directorates, departments and agencies dealing with firearms.
Overall objective
The overall objective of the workshops was to familiarize participants with the responsibilities and functions that the National Focal Points perform in line with the United Nations Programme of Action, United Nations Protocol, Bamako Declaration, The Nairobi Declaration, The Nairobi Protocol and the African Common Position at the national, sub- regional, regional and international levels in addressing the problem of small arms and light weapons.
Methodology
The workshop made use of both plenary and facilitated small group discussions. Presentations were made by various contributors include resource persons, facilitators and technical experts.
Outputs
This workshop resulted in the following outputs:
- Numbers of well trained police, military, intelligence customs, immigration, judicial and other law enforcement agencies officials to efficiently and effectively deal with small arms and light weapons matters in their respective institutions/ organisations.
- Well developed Law Enforcement Training Curricula and Manual distributed for use in the national training programmes at the training institutions of the various law enforcement agencies that have participated at the workshop.
- A workshop report, which includes a summary of the presentations, discussions and decisions from the workshop disseminated to key stakeholders.
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