By Abubakarr Harding
The Independent Commission for Peace and National Cohesion (ICPNC), in collaboration with the African Union (AU), has organized a five-day training program at the Peace Commission Building on Lamina Sankoh Street in Freetown. The training, which commenced on the 12th April, 2023 is to enhance the capacity of the Peace Commission staff to manage the Peace Situation room. During the training the capacity of staff will be built on media Incidences Monitoring.
It will equip them with the necessary skills for the operation of the equipment, tools and software that are based in the Peace Commission’s Situation Room.
According to the Executive Secretary of ICPNC, Hawa Sally Samai, prior to the commencement of the training, the Situation Room is a place where emergency calls will be received from their Toll line, which is 898.
She further informed how these calls will be filtered and acted upon as they have teams in all the districts also disclosing how the Situation Room is going to comprise of representatives from the  PPRC, NEC and the Security Sector, among others, who are currently benefitting from the training, in order for them to be able to efficiently and effectively respond to stress calls professionally.
She hammered home the point that the Situation Room is not only for the purpose of election but will continue to exist even after the election, as disputes and other violence-related issues may arise.
The Executive Secretary assured of continuing  to work with the grassroots people, even at the village level, so that people can solve their differences amicably in order to make Sierra Leone the most peaceful country in West Africa.
Hawa Samai added that Sierra Leone is the most peaceful country in the Mano River Union and for them they want it to be the shining example that other countries should emulate.
She expressed gratitude to the AU for supporting them in setting up the Situation Room adding that a delegation is already in the country to assist in capacity building.
According to her, the grand launching of the Situation Room will be the 20th April 2, 2023, when President Bio will be launch the Commission alongside the Situation Room.
She stated that after the launching on April 29, 2023, there will be a National Peace Matching/Walking/Jogging Peace March in all districts simultaneously.
Taye Abdul Kadir, the Early Warning Expert of the Political Affairs, Peace and Security Department of the  African Union Commission, who is the Lead Facilitator of the training stated that this is their second visit revealing how their visit is to capacitate the newly established, Independent Commission of Peace and National Cohesion in Sierra Leone.
He added that the Commission is a permanent national peace infrastructure created to service the people of Sierra Leone adding that in that regard, they are trying to capacitate the Commission’s Situation Room.
The expert maintained that since the Situation Room needs computers and other related ICT equipment, they therefore bought some equipment, and are offering training to the people who will be working in there on the systems, tools and software that will assist them to fulfill their day-to-day work.
Kadir stated that there is an installed application called the African Media Monitor, which actually helps to do open source information gathering stating how the application gathers information automatically from those open sources, like blogs, websites, and published resources on the internet.
He added that there is no cost attached to that as it is all covered by the African Union and customized for the use of the Independent Commission for Peace National Cohesion.
