Experts Validate Ecowas Reference Manual On the Culture of Peace

6 July 2012
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Ougadougou - Burkina Faso — Regional experts have enriched and validated the ECOWAS Reference Manual on the Culture of Peace, Human Rights, Citizenship, and  Regional Integration.

The Manual, a product of wide ranging region wide consultations  initiated in 2006 borrows from the experiences of experts in peace-building  in the region and outside, including from UNESCO.

The document, which was improved upon by the experts at a five-day workshop which ended in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on 6th Friday July 2012, comprises seven modules dealing with the Culture of Peace and  Conflict Management; Human Rights; Civism and Citizenship; Democracy  and Good Governance; Gender and Development; Public Health, Environment and Sustainable Development; and Regional Integration.

Each module is sub-themed and designed to guide trainers and is suitable and adaptable to the training of trainers in both formal and non-formal education delivery.

The aim is to create through education, a critical mass of community citizens sensitized and imbued with the peace culture, which is necessary to engender and promote peace, development and regional integration.

The experts are expected to meet again in Niamey, Niger by the end of September 2012, to finalize the Manual for submission to the Conference of Education and Culture Ministers, scheduled for Niamey, Niger Republic in October.

Opening the five-day validation workshop in Ouagadougou on 2nd July 2012, the Burkina Faso Minister for Education and Literacy, Honourable  Koumba Boly called on ECOWAS Member States to promote the peace culture in the region through value-centred education.

She also suggested that the validated Manual should be translated into local languages for teaching in educational institutions in Member States and ease of dissemination to community citizens.

The ECOWAS Commissioner for Human Development and Gender, Dr. Adrienne  Diop, represented by the Director of Education, Prof Abdoulaye Maga, linked the recurrent crises and instability in the region to retrogression of the high value system that characterized traditional societies in the region.

The African Development Bank, which sponsored the workshop, collaborated with the ECOWAS Commission, through the ECOWAS Peace Fund, in developing the Manual as part of efforts at fostering regional integration within the framework of the Support to ECOWAS for Peace Development Project (PADEP), supported by the Bank with UNESCO as one of the key implementing partners.

The culture of peace is one of the 15 components of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF).

The workshop was also attended by the Burkina Faso Minister for Secondary and Higher Education, Prof. Moussa Ouattara, experts from ECOWAS Member State, resource persons from Universities, Centres of Excellence, the West African Civil Society Forum (WASCOF), Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), and representatives of development partners, including the African Development Bank, UNESCO and ECOWAS Commission officials.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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