The African Union (AU), on Wednesday, launched its first Humanitarian Law and Policy Training Initiative in Livingstone, Zambia.
The initiative, which is in partnership with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), has “Transforming Africa’s Humanitarian Architecture” as its theme.
At the launch, Mr Abdon Mawere, the Zambian Commissioner for Refugees, Ministry of Home Affairs, said the three-day training aimed to address the specific needs and situation of forced displacements in Africa, while maintaining the fundamental principles of international law.
He said the need for the training was initiated in 2016 by the UNHCR as a key component of AU”s 10-year Plan of Action on humanitarian effectiveness (2016 to 2026).
He said Africa was facing an increased challenge of forced human displacement from conflicts and natural disasters which had taken heavy toll on human lives and development.
“So, there is the need to meet and share experiences to know how best to tackle the problem holistically.”
He also said that Zambia had a long history of taking care of refugees, saying that in 2016, the country had 200,000 refugees from Angola, Mozambique and DR Congo.
In an opening remark, Lamine Baali, the Ambassador, Saharawi Arab Republic, recalled the instruments and conventions of the AU.
These include the 1969 OAU Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, the Kampala Convention on Internally Displaced Persons and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to tackle humanitarian problem.
Baali, who is also the Chair, Partner Representative Committee on Refugees, noted that in spite of the conventions and instruments, the humanitarian problem in Africa was huge and could get worst if unchecked.
He said the training initiative was therefore to sensitise AU member states and policy implementers to the need for proactive measures to tackle the situation.
Mr Chanda Cosmos, the UNHCR Representative to AU and Economic Commission for Africa, said the training was to take a closer look at available instruments for African countries to manage migration, forced displacement and Internally Displaced Persons.
Earlier, Mr Olabisi Dare, the Director, AU Department of Political Affairs, said the union recently adopted a new humanitarian architecture, contained in the union’s Humanitarian Policy Framework and the Common African Position as blueprint on humanitarian effectiveness in Africa.
He said the new approach was to move away from norm setting to implementation, emphasising that the African Peace and Security Architecture was basically for warning signs to conflicts and natural disasters so as to mitigate a problem even before it happened.
He recalled the recent election impasse in The Gambia, where the architecture was positively used to nip an imminent crisis in that country in the bud.
He reiterated the new AU approach for implementation, saying states should be encouraged to be responsive to humanitarian problems in their areas and to offer solutions to negative occurrences even before they happened.
“Africans cannot continue to leave the tap open and assume to mop after the flood.
“We cannot continue to watch things happen and begin to respond afterwards. We should be able to mitigate even before negative things happen,” he said.
Dare also said that the training was intended to deepen existing understanding of AU instruments on humanitarian problems and to encourage their ratification, domestication and implementation and contribute to effective protection and assistance of forcibly displaced populations.
The training, which will close on Friday, has as participants AU officials, officials of UNHCR, partners in handling humanitarian situations, foreign affairs ministry officials, ECOWAS and journalists.
