A sub regional capacity building workshop aimed at honing the skills of representatives of some member states of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) has held in Yaounde.
Dr. Ivor Richard Fung, Representative of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)
The training of trainers workshop which brought together representatives of Gabon, Angola and Sao Tome focused on how to form national commissions as well as elaborate action plans towards ending the circulation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs).
The workshop at the Franco Hotel Friday 2 July 2021 was organized by the Cameroon Youths and Students Forum for Peace (CAMYOSFOP) – a civil society organ task with implementing the project. CAMYOSFOP has also been at the fore, mobilizing stakeholders to fight arms circulation in Cameroon and beyond.
“We are mainly focusing on Angola, Gabon and Sao Tome where national workshops could not be organized for various reasons,” said Dr. Ivor Richard Fung, Representative of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). He revealed that the training was held with delegations of these countries present in Cameroon due to failure to hold a national workshop in their countries for one reason or the other.
“We are training them and sharing expertise with them so that once they go back home, they would intend, organize national workshops. It is like training of trainers that we do here in two areas; the setting up of national commissions and the elaboration of national action plans on the control of small arms,” the UNODA representative disclosed, noting that the training was holding in line with the Kinshasa Convention which is a legal framework for the sub region adopted in 2010 and went into force in 2017.
“It aims at providing legal context by which states can exercise control over the flow of illicit weapons, small arms and light weapons. It is complementary to other international instruments like the UN programme of action to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects,”. Fung said.
The Kinshasa convention, he said is the framework for the sub region and managed by the Economic Community of Central African States, ECCAS. He further explained that states at their individual levels also have to have appropriate arrangements to facilitate their work.
“We would be going in to all kinds of details required in setting up the national commissions and the elaboration of national action plans. The UN has instruments, which we call Modular Small Arms Implementation Compendium, MOSAIC. The tools are a set of modules that facilitate the work of states and other actors including Civil Society Organisations to set up mechanisms and also to sharpen their skills in this area,” FUNG revealed.
Representative of ECCAS, Missak Kasongo Museu on his part said the body at its level is working with partners like UN, CAMYOSFOP, to encourage them to put in place their national commissions and also to initiate the preparation of national strategy to control small arms and light weapons.
This, he said, is very important because it is at this level that the ECCAS commission is called upon to work in putting in place the implementation of the Kinshasa convention to control small arms and light weapons in the Central African Sub region.
The Central African Convention for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition and all Parts and Components that can be used for their Manufacture, Repair and Assembly, also known as the Kinshasa Convention, was adopted in 2010 by eleven signatories. On 6 February 2017, the conditions for the entry into force of the instrument were met, after its ratification by Angola and entered into force on 8 March 2017.
It complements and reinforces the existing regional and global framework comprising, among others, the Arms Trade Treaty, the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), and its Firearms Protocol.
By Doh Bertrand Nua
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