Senior officials across the military, police, and civilian components of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), are attending a five-day training programme curated on Monitoring Evaluation and Learning for Peace Support Operations in Africa (MELPAC) by trainers from the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), from Ghana.

The training is facilitated by the AU Political Affairs Peace and Security (PAPS) Department, the United Nations Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) and the United Nations Office to the African Union (UNOAU).

At the opening in Mogadishu, Somalia, the Deputy Head of AMISOM, Simon Mulongo, said as a Mission it was important to learn best practices to ensure AMISOM delivers effectively on its mandate.

“As a mission we will continue to improve on our monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure the best use of resources and effective output”, he said.

As a mission we will continue to improve on our monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure the best use of resources and effective output

The Commandant of the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre, Maj. General Francis Ofori, said the training had been tailored specifically to support Peace Support Operations Missions across Africa.

He said: “This training has been designed within the context of Africa and the challenges peacekeepers encounter in ensuring a secure and stable continent”.

A facilitator and lead trainer from the AU Political Affairs Peace and Security Department, Ken Abotsi, mentioned that improving on monitoring and evaluation mechanisms was important to ensuring accountability, transparency, and judicious use of resources.

“We want to see an AMISOM that has a learning system which gives feedback in terms of processes, strategies, challenges and successes in achieving its mandate. Systems and processes can always be improved, and we want to ensure that AMISOM is effectively improving on accountability, efficiency and effectiveness”, he said.

The lead facilitator from KAIPTC, Colonel Wellington Attipoe-Dumashie, said the training modules had been developed in response to a needs assessment conducted by KAIPTC in 2019, for both the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on how best to improve evaluation and monitoring mechanisms to support Peace Support Operations.

“In the short term our goal is to build the capacities of the staff of AMISOM. In the medium to long term, we hope to see Monitoring and Evaluation professionalised and institutionalised in the Mission,” said Col. Attipoe-Dumashie.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Union Mission in Somalia.