Target country
Mandator
On June 20th a meeting will take place under the NL EU presidency that will bring together the two committees of EU member states representatives that deal with development policy (“CODEV”) and with civilian aspects of crisis management (“CivCom”), as well as representatives from the European Commission and the European External Action Service. In total some 70 participants are expected.
The occasion for the meeting is the fact that this Summer the EU will produce two policy documents: one on SSR and one on Capacity Building in support of Security and Development (CBSD – or Train&Equip). The document on SSR has gone through a relatively extensive consultation process with useful discussions on the concept as such and its application by EU instruments. The discussions on CBSD/Train&Equip, however, have been mostly top-down and focused on legal and budgetary issues. For the Netherlands that is cause for concern because train & equip as an approach of course has its risks and pitfalls.
Mandating organisation / agency / department / ministry
Target organisation type(s)
Mandate outputs / products
We would like to ask Medhane Tadesse (ASSN) to present this African perspective in about a presentation of 20 minutes which will be followed by a Q&A.
Outcome objectives of mandate
The intention of the meeting is to focus on what works in practice regarding CBSD and to provide realistic input to the EU discussions. The intention is to have one or two speakers who give an African perspective on train and equip and provide some practical lessons from the past on what worked and what has gone wrong when providing training and equipment to African security forces. The idea is to contribute to ensuring a sensible and well considered approach once the legal and financial issues have been resolved.