Participants at the Annual Symposium of the Yaounde Combined War College (CSID) at Simbock in Yaounde on April 18-19 2012 discussed Africa’s security environment and ways to improve it and maintain stability.
The two-day symposium that held on the theme “Africa in the face of new threats: Strategic problems, policies and legal issues,” brought together experts within and without to honour the seventh batch of the institution.
The Secretary of State to the Minister of Defence in charge of War Veterans and Victims, Koumpa Issa, told participants that transnational threats fuelled by globalisation are hitting hard on the continent and it was time security stakeholders got adapted to the new threats. He argued that Africa’s security landscape has changed dramatically in the past years with human and drug trafficking, terrorism and trans-border criminality increasing. Koumpa Issa added that the search for solutions to these threats that impact negatively on the continent’s development, was urgent.
Globalisation has weakened States, giving an upper hand to emerging forms of organised crime, piracy and terrorism, all tapped from Information and Communication Technologies. This shift from traditional threats towards newer, non-traditional ones with the Central Africa Sub-region playing host to frontiers with many sub-regions, is preoccupying.
Prof. Joseph Vincent Ntuda Ebode, one of the speakers at the symposium and also head of the Research Centre for Political and Strategic Studies at the University of Yaounde II, Soa, said the emerging security threats call for collective action from all States. “We are here to share ideas and seek ways of gathering resources,” he said.
Participants in the symposium are among other things working on ameliorating the visibility of the school, an aspect dear to them. The symposium that ended yesterday April 19 is part of this year’s batch’s objective to raise awareness about international organisations in order to maintain peace.
