PAX MONDIAL ‘INSTRUMENTAL’ IN DELIVERING CAPACITY BUILDING IN AFRICA
The meeting was chaired by Mr Skip Waskin (Senior Vice President, Pax Mondial) and attended by Prof. Jean-Pierre Ezin (Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology for the African Union), Dr Fadila Boughanemi (International Cooperation, DG Research), Mr Solomon Abebe Tessema (Deputy Head of Ethiopian Mission to Brussels), and Ms Lada Guivarch (Crisis Response Planner, FPI, Commission) amongst others. Some of the key issues raised included: - Do institutions have a common understanding of what stabilisation entails? - Substantively, what stabilisation operations gain priority? - Where should operational energy be focused? - The “Missing Middle”: in post-conflict situations, whilst short-term responses are good, what can we do to ensure stability in the medium to long-term? The genesis of Pax Mondial, according to the organisation’s CEO, Mr Paul Wood, was in part a reaction to the concern that practical approaches to stability were being discounted: “we all need to spend our money better; provide relevant solutions that are contingent on the state of the environment we find ourselves in”. What do these approaches entail? “Efforts in isolation do not work. Rather, Pax Mondial applies itself to a suite of services (Conflict Management, Construction and Camp Services, Information Operations, Risk Management, Training and Capacity Development, Stabilisation and Development). Equally, Pax working in isolation does not work; I will stress that I believe in buy-in from government, NGOs and local partners”. Commissioner Jean-Pierre Ezin, the event’s keynote speaker, stressed the necessity for “higher levels of engagement at the policy programme and instrument level” in bringing Africa’s challenges to task. Forecasting the priorities moving forward, Commissioner Ezin declared that “organisations such as Pax Mondial will be instrumental in delivering capacity-building capability”. He later called on the EU to continue to provide a “sustainable framework for capacity-building in Africa”. Speaking of his time as Director of USAID’s response to the Haiti disaster, Mr Skip Waskin, Senior Vice President of Pax Mondial, reflects that: “3 months into Haiti, and things were working very well. But then you come upon the ‘Missing Middle’ – the vacuum after the initial relief effort where stability needs to grow back. This, the international community are not so successful with. If you could replay events, and under slightly different circumstances, perhaps medical doctors tending to the wounded Haitians wounded would not have to defend themselves with a scalpel – Pax Mondial could have been there to safeguard efforts”.
Countries
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Egypt, Greece, Spain, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Ghana, Guinea, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Libya, Morocco, Malta, Nigeria, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sudan, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, Somalia, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States