Lieutenant Colonel Anthony T. Walker, a 2008 graduate of the Master of Arts in Diplomacy program, alongside Major Pete Amadi and Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Koerner recently taught a United Nations Peacekeeping course for African partners.
The United Nations Peacekeeping Course for African Partners (UNPCAP-01) was designed for mid-level military officials from countries in Africa, who are active “Troop Contributing Countries” to both UN and African Union peace operations. The first UNPCAP took place against the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment at the Peacekeeping Summit in New York last September, as also his commitment to African leaders during the third India-Africa Forum Summit last October.
The UNPCAP-01 also marked the operationalization of one of the elements of the India-US Joint Statement of January 2015, where the leaders of both countries had committed to “accelerate their peacekeeping capacity building efforts in third countries”. The Centre for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK), New Delhi, in collaboration with the US Government’s GPOI (Global Peace Operations Initiative) program, organized the first “United Nations Peacekeeping Course for African Partners (UNPCAP-I)” from 25 July-12 August 2016 at the Indian Army’s Manekshaw Centre.
During the course, U.S. instructors (Lieutenant Colonel Walker, Major Amadi, and Lieutenant Colonel Koerner) worked side by side with Indian instructors to teach the United Nation’s (UN) core peacekeeping pre-deployment training modules to this group of 37 Mid-level military officers from Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia, Sierra Leone and the African Union. The training exposed military commanders from these countries to typical operational, logistic and humanitarian roles that the peacekeepers are usually required to perform while participating in UN/AU peace operations. The course was aimed at equipping military officers in UN peacekeeping operations with the knowledge and tools needed to enable them to meaningfully implement UN policies and guidance, and to deliver on specific mission objectives and benchmarks related to training of their peacekeepers and set benchmark of training for African peacekeepers contributing to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.
