Abuja, 20^th November 2017 . The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Standby Force (ESF), has kicked off a Political Strategic retreat with the aim of analyzing the scenario (CARANA) for its forthcoming Command Post Exercise (CPX) and validating its decision making process for a Peace Support Operation (PSO) within the context of the African Peace and security Architecture (APSA).

The four-day retreat which commenced on 20^th November, 2017 in Abuja, Nigeria, is being convened with the support of Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and is part of a series of scheduled activities in the build up to the CPX.

The ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security Mrs. Halima Ahmed in her opening remarks delivered by the Head of the ECOWAS Peace Support Division, Colonel Ollo Alain Palé , stated that the retreat was an important step towards sustaining the ESF Full Operational Capacity (FOC) and  testing its ability to execute multidimensional peace operations.

The Commissioner further stated that, the retreat will also serve to validate ECOWAS’ decision making process for mandating Peace Support Operations within the region.

Also speaking during the opening of the session, the Head of the GIZ Peace and Security Support Programme to the ECOWAS Commission, Mrs. Yvonne Akpasom, reiterated that the retreat presents ECOWAS with an opportunity to revisit and refine its decision making processes.

She further expressed her optimism that the retreat will also improve ECOWAS’ Rapid Deployment Capability (RDC) in circumstances where required in the future.

Participants of the retreat are expected to conduct strategic analysis and assessments of the simulated CPX and develop an initial draft of the mission plan for the exercise.