West African Defence Chiefs Intensify Efforts On Maritime Security (ECOWAS)

5 October 2011
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Abuja — The ECOWAS Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff (CCDS) has recommended an expansion of membership of its sub-committee on maritime security from five to 10 members, as part of efforts to consolidate regional response to security threats, especially in the wake of escalating piracy, drug and human trafficking and other transnational organized crimes in West Africa.

Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo will now join Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria in the committee that will make proposals to the CCDS within two months on issues relating to regional maritime security. The enlarged committee will be assisted by three maritime legal experts. This was one of the key recommendations of the CCDS two-day meeting which ended in Abuja on Wednesday, 5th October 2011.

The regional defence chiefs also called on those Member States that pledged to contribute police personnel to reinforce Liberia's national police for the forthcoming presidential and legislative elections to put these units on standby for possible deployment. Four of the Member States whose defence chiefs attended a one-day extraordinary meeting of the Joint Committees of the Chiefs of Defence Staff and Security Services in Monrovia on 13th September 2011 pledged to contribute at least 540 police and 280 Gendarmerie to this support force.

These are Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria. The defence chiefs urged the continuation of joint security patrol along the common borders of Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia and the retraining of former Ivorian rebels now being re-integrated into the country's armed forces. In addition, the defence chiefs called on the ECOWAS Commission to pursue efforts towards the lifting of the United Nations arms embargo on Cote d'Ivoire. They also proposed the extension of the ECOWAS Small Arms Programme (ECOSAP) based in Bamako, Mali for another five years. This recommendation is expected to be presented to the next meeting of the ECOWAS Mediation and Security Council. The Council is composed of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence and their counterparts in charge of Security.

The defence chiefs endorsed more Command Posts and Field Training exercises for the ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) to prepare them for immediate deployment. The defence chiefs also agreed to attend an ESF Main Brigade Validation Command Post exercise in Accra, Ghana on 25th November 2011 code-named "JIGUI 3." "JIGUI 1", a command post exercise was held in Bamako, Mali in 2008 while "JIGUI 2," a Field Training exercise took place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in 2009.

The objective of JIGUI 3 is to elevate the capacities of the Mission Planning and Management Cell (MPMC) for strategic planning and the ESF for command and control on deployment.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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