EASF Police Points of Contact Workshop Concludes in Djibouti

A three-day EASF Police Points of Contacts' Workshop came to a successful close on Thursday, 19th January 2017 in Djibouti. The workshop was organized with the aim of updating the Police Component on the enhancement and continuous preparedness of pledged capacities in EASF Member States to support future deployment.

It also aimed at updating existing records of these capacities in the EASF Police Roster Database.

Since EASF attained Full Operational Capability (FOC) in 2014, it has continuously geared up it's activities and has now been declared by the African Union the first Standby Force on the continent to be on standby from January to June 2017. This implies that the African Union can mandate EASF to participate in Peace Support Operations on the African continent at any time during this period.

The workshop was officially opened by the Director General of Djibouti National Police Abdillahi Abdi. In his opening remarks, the Director General underlined the necessity of enhancing police activities by building and improving existing networks so as to share information more effectively. In an era where data processing is easier than ever before, he emphasized that capturing data must be accompanied by an equivalent effort to ascertain that efficient retrieval of required information from databases is also guaranteed.

The workshop was attended by eight out of ten representatives from EASF Member States, namely; Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. It was steered by the EASF Head of Police Component. Further participants included the EASF Senior Police Advisor from Norway, EASF Police Technical Advisor from Denmark, GIZ Project Officer, EASF Staff and a Database Development Specialist.

The workshop was fully supported by the Federal Republic of Germany through GIZ.    

Photo Gallery of the Police Points of Contact Workshop in Djibouti