Heads of UN peace missions in West Africa to meet Friday

The heads of all five United Nations peace missions in West Africa will meet later this week in a bid to harmonize the UN’s policies and activities in the region, pulling together common assets across the area and exploiting synergies among the operations to achieve greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

The gathering comes a week after the Force Commanders of the three UN peacekeeping missions in the area held a coordination meeting of their own to bolster sub-regional cross-border security.

Hosted by the UN Office for West Africa, (UNOWA), the meeting will be held Friday on Gorée Island, Senegal. It will be chaired by Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative for West Africa, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, and attended by the chiefs of the UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (MINUCI), Albert Tevoedjre; the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), Jacques Paul Klein; the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), Daudi Ngelautwa Mwakawago; and the UN Peace-building support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS), David Stephen.

In addition to reviewing the overall situation in West Africa and discussing specific cross-border issues of regional interest, the meeting is expected to cover the potential consequences of the troop reductions of UNAMSIL, the cross-border humanitarian impact of crises, especially in Guinea, the regional impact of the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, and further political and military cooperation among UN peace missions in West Africa.

The first high-level meeting of UN missions in West Africa took place last November at UNAMSIL Headquarters in the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown.