Abuja - Nigeria — The ECOWAS Emergency Response Team (EERT) on Friday, 30th July 2010 concluded a five-day training programme for managers and specialists that included a simulation exercise to prepare the participants for eventual deployment in emergencies.
The objectives of this workshop, one of several organized by the EERT, were to build regional capacity of ECOWAS to manage forced population displacement; enhance the capacity of the region to undertake initiatives in early warning contingency planning, emergency preparedness & response, conflict prevention, and international protection of persons of concern; strengthen the ECOWAS Regional Network and coordination in refugees/ Internally Displaced Persons and emergency management. At the opening of the workshop, the ECOWAS Commissioner for Human Development and Gender, Dr Adrienne Diop said the development of a regional emergency response has become more compelling after the crises in the region during the 90's when the lack of such capacity became obvious.
"After successful military interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the ECOWAS Commission realized that during the years of military intervention, there was no humanitarian impute in the response the ECOWAS Commission in 2005 took a bold step to develop an emergency response capacity which will provide first line humanitarian response to victims of conflicts and natural disasters in the sub region,' she said.
The outgoing the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative to ECOWAS and Nigeria, Mr. Alphonse Malanda, advised that practical exercises be put in place to make the EERT more functional, adding that the EERT is not meant to replace or copy the efforts of development partners but to complement their efforts in providing humanitarian response to victims of conflicts and disasters while also creating a sense of ownership and responsibility to the peoples of the region. The week-long workshop was attended by participants from Member States, the ECOWAS Commission and the UNHCR.
