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UN Peace Missions in West Africa Meet in Dakar

Accra Mail (Accra)
NEWS
May 20, 2004
Posted to the web May 20, 2004

The third High-level meeting of all five Heads of UN peace missions in West
Africa will be held in Dakar, on 21 May 2004.
Hosted by the UN Office for West Africa, (UNOWA), the meeting will be chaired
by Mr. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah (UNOWA), and is expected to be attended by Mr.
Albert Tevoedjre (UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire ? MINUCI), Mr. Jacques Klein (UN
mission in Liberia - UNMIL), Mr. Daudi Ngelautwa Mwakawago (UN mission in
Sierra Leone - UNAMSIL), and Mrs. Mariama Gamatié-Bayard. (UN peace-building
support office in Guinea Bissau - UNOGBIS).
A special guest, Mr. Ibrahim Gambari, Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-
General for Africa, will brief participants on NEPAD and its relevance to the
West African region.
The High-level meeting is a consultative forum which was established last year.
It aims at fostering a regional approach and furthering progress in harmonizing
policies and activities of the UN peace presences in West Africa.
At the 21 May meeting, the UN Special Representatives will review the overall
peace and security situation in West Africa and discuss specific cross-border
issues of regional interest. They are expected to focus part of their
discussion on ongoing efforts to foster cross-border collaboration among
missions and also to consider the regional dimensions of the situation in
northern Cote d'Ivoire and in the Guinean province of Guinea-Forestiere.
A parallel meeting of Experts and Representatives of National Disarmament
Commissions, the humanitarian community and civil society, at which the SRSGs
will attend the opening and closing sessions, will be chaired by Mr. Ahmed
Rhazaoui, UN Deputy Special Representative for West Africa, will discuss in
depth issues related to Disarmament- Demobilization-Reintegration (DDR)
programmes and policies in the region.
The first high-Level meeting of UN missions in West Africa took place at
UNAMSIL Headquarters in Freetown in November 2003 at which Heads of Missions
agreed to maintain a regular mechanism of consultation.
Welcoming this initiative, the members of the UN Security Council have called
for UN presences in West Africa to take concrete action towards implementing a
regional approach, including pulling together UN assets across the region and
exploiting synergies between the missions to achieve greater efficiency and
cost-effectiveness.

   

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