By Milllicent Senava Mannah
The Independent Peace Commission for National Cohesion (ICPNC) in partnership with Kofi Annan International Peace-Keeping Training Centre(KAIPTC) has organized a two days Conflict Mediation and Reconciliation workshop for 20 Peace Mediators in the Western Urban and Rural ahead of the 24th June, 2023 general elections on 25rd&26th June, 2023. This is geared towards enabling them to be able to observe, and identify any threats before and after the elections. The training took place at the institution’s building, at Lamina Sankoh Street, in Freetown.
Hawa Samai, the Executive Secretary, ICPNC, intimated that the workshop was an extension of their activities further maintaining that the training is not only for elections, but the knowledge acquired will be useful as they continue to work even after elections.
She stated that they should work together to ensure peace and national cohesion is maintained even after elections continuing that with the skills derived from the training they should be able to resolve conflicts within the Western Urban Area
Hawa Samai noted that they must have confidentiality and not to be revealing secrets about their work to others but rather see things in ways that bring unity, peace and development in the country.
Mustapha Abdallah, Senior Researcher, Kofi Annan International Peace-Keeping Training Centre, stated that their institution is one of the ECOWAS Centres of excellence located in Accra, Ghana that is committed in training of peace keepers as well as conflict resolution mediators.
He intimated that the training is based on the need to ensure the promotion of peace as the election draws near furthering that, as the elections draw near, they want to contribute to the peace and stability of the country and how that is why they organized the training.
‘’The key aim of the training is to ensure that we enlarge the capacity of peace monitors and conflict resolution mediators in the country for them to be able to maintain peace and national cohesion during and after elections,’’ Mustapha Abdallah stated.
‘’At the end of the training we expect the trained individuals to be able to actually mediate peace and ensure that they can be able to resolve any potential conflict that can undermine the peace and stability of the elections,’’ he said.
He noted that they should be able to report the key state actors and institutions to be able to respond effectively so that they can have an election that is free from potential risks and instabilities.
Mustapha stated that they are looking at three key areas, election monitoring saying if elections are not monitored very well the triggers of threats will not be seen.
Second is conflict analysis, which helps to understand the context, the key actors within the political landscape in Sierra Leone, adding that when it is done it enables actors to know the potential areas where conflicts are likely to occur, and by understanding all the dynamics they would be able to respond to volatile situations.
The third area is mediation stating that if they identify all these areas of conflict and they don’t have mediators in place who are trained to handle such situations it is likely these conflicts will escalate into violence.
One of the Peace Mediators commended the institution for organizing such a timely training assuring that they will work assiduously to implement what they have learnt to ensure that peace and national cohesion in the country are maintained.
A question and answer session climaxed the training workshop.
