IGAD Peace and Security Strategy

Press Release— A group of researchers, scholars and experts convened yesterday in the normally quiet city of Djibouti to review the thematic papers prepared towards the development of the IGAD Peace and Security Strategy.

he two-day roundtable that brought together the authors and regional experts including diplomats and university dons was opened by Dr Attalla Bashir, the IGAD Executive Secretary. He welcomed the distinguished participants to the IGAD Secretariat and thanked them for accepting the invitation to be part of “this very important process that would provide us with a proactive instrument to manage conflict in our region.”

The Executive Secretary pointed out that since the launch of the process in Khartoum in October 2005, several activities had been undertaken including a workshop in Mombasa in July 2007 that identified the thematic issues to be researched.

During the roundtable that ends today, consultants engaged to research on the thematic issues will present their findings and recommendations. Each presentation will be followed by a discussion and at the end of the roundtable, the papers will take their shape for a stakeholders’ workshop to be held in a few weeks. In addition, modalities and timelines for finalization of the strategy will also be deliberated upon.

The thematic issues include:

• Border demarcation of IGAD member states and its implications,
• Cross border economic cooperation in the IGAD region,
• The issue of the access to the sea of land locked countries,
• Trans boundary water resource management, and
• Cross border cooperation on countering terrorism.

Throughout the process, views and other inputs of a broad range of stakeholders are being incorporated.

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