MIL Africa Engine

Source: APO

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His Excellency Dr. Julius Maada Bio, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone and Chair of the ECOWAS Authority, today presided over a high-level United Nations Security Council open debate on “Threats to International Peace and Security: Conflict-Related Food Insecurity” at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Addressing the Council for the second time in two years during Sierra Leone’s tenure, President Bio warned that hunger is increasingly being used as a weapon of war and called for stronger global action to prevent the deliberate starvation of civilians. He stressed that such acts are prohibited under international law and constitute war crimes.

The President highlighted that conflicts across regions—from Gaza and Sudan to Haiti, Ukraine, and the Sahel, continue to devastate food systems, destroy livelihoods, and deepen humanitarian crises. He described starvation as a “slow, silent, corrosive” form of violence that fuels instability, displacement, and renewed conflict.

President Bio outlined three core messages saying starvation is not collateral damage but a crime; food insecurity is both a driver of conflict and a peacebuilding imperative; and sustainable peace requires investment in agricultural resilience, markets, and human capital, especially women and youth.

He presented Sierra Leone’s Feed Salone Initiative as a national model demonstrating that food security is integral to the peace and development nexus. The four-pillar programme, production, resilience, markets and value chains, and human capital, aims to strengthen productivity, reduce import dependence, and build climate-smart systems that secure stable livelihoods.

At the regional level, President Bio emphasized ECOWAS efforts to integrate food security into peacebuilding, early warning, and trade frameworks, including the expansion of the ECOWAS Food Security Reserve and the ECOWARN early warning network.

Proposing six concrete global actions, the President urged the Council to protect food systems in conflict zones, institutionalize early-warning mechanisms, safeguard humanitarian access, advance accountability for starvation crimes, link peacebuilding finance to agriculture and livelihoods, and prioritize the empowerment of women and youth across agricultural value chains.

He affirmed that Africa does not seek sympathy but partnership, noting that the continent holds the majority of the world’s uncultivated arable land and significant youth-driven innovative potential. Preventing future wars, he stressed, requires treating food security as central to peace and security rather than a secondary humanitarian concern.

President Bio concluded by calling on the global community to “ensure that no child is starved into submission, no harvest held hostage, and no community driven to violence by hunger,” urging nations to align moral conscience with international law and collective action.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of State House Sierra Leone.

Source: APO

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In recent days the Emergency Relief Coordinator has travelled to various parts of the war-torn country and met leaders, frontline responders and survivors of the crisis.

“We need more UN boots on the ground,” Mr. Fletcher said. “The UN is a ship that was not built to stay in the harbour, and this visit has been part of that big push to make sure we’re mobilised closer to those we serve.”

Progress on negotiations

Mr. Fletcher said he had a “useful” meeting with General Burhan, leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), focused on getting “unlimited” and “unhindered” humanitarian access.

He also met representatives from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in what was a “tough” discussion, where he set out “unequivocally” that the UN will be expecting protection for civilians and insisting on accountability and safe passages for civilians and aid convoys.

“We have, I think, a pretty strong agreement from the authorities [of the military government] in Port Sudan and the RSF on full access and safe passage for our convoys to go in and for civilians to get out,” Mr. Fletcher said. “Now let’s see what happens next.”

‘Crime scene’ in El Fasher 

The UN also made progress on getting teams into El Fasher, in Darfur, on the organization’s terms, Mr. Fletcher added.

“We’re not going to be instrumentalised,” he emphasized. “This is a potential crime scene, and we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the right people going in, and that the aid is genuinely neutral and impartial.”

El Fasher was captured by the RSF last month after more than 500 days of siege, leading to the displacement of some 90,000 people since the end of October.

When asked about the number of deaths in El Fasher, Mr. Fletcher said there is no credible answer on how many have been killed so far.

There are hundreds of thousands of people in Tawila, but “many people clearly aren’t getting out of El Fasher,” he said.

“One of the things we want to do when we go in is to find out why that is and to see what the conditions are, in which they are being held there.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of UN News.

Source: APO

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The Vice President of the ECOWAS Commission, Her Excellency Damtien L. Tchintchibidja on the 11th November 2025 paid a working visit to the site for the new Headquarters complex of the ECOWAS Commission, in the company of the technical officials from the Directorates of Transport and Administration & General Services. Representatives from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Nigeria, the major financier, was also in attendance.

The Vice President and Her delegation were briefed on the progress of the project, the expected completion timelines and a few challenges requiring urgent attention to ensure the functionality of the Complex once completed. The overall physical progress was given as around 85%, and arrangements have been made to ensure that the remaining 15% works are completed urgently for handover. The excessive rainfall in the past months and a few site issues had led to substantial delays especially to the external works, but the contractor has doubled up its workforce to ensure the timely completion.

The Commission also acknowledged the progress made by the Federal Republic of Nigeria on contracting out the construction of the buildings for the ECOWAS Parliament, Community Court of Justice, and thanked His Excellency the President, H. E. Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his continued support to ECOWAS Community Institutions, through direct assistance to strengthen the institutions.

The Vice President of the Commission made a humble request for the Federal Government and the Federal Capital Territory and its Development Authority to expedite works on the district infrastructure and utilities connecting the site to the respective national/FCT networks including the access road, district water & sewage system, as well as telecommunication and electricity.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Source: APO

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The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission on Friday, 14 November 2025 launched Phase II of the Pan-African Consortium for Master’s Degrees in Translation and Conference Interpreting (PAMCIT). The event was held at the headquarters of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) in Lomé, Togo and also featured scholarship awards to students from Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis, Senegal, and a pledge to support the University of Lomé, Togo, in meeting the challenges associated with degree programmes in Translation and Conference Interpreting.

With the theme “Promoting regional integration: institutional and academic cooperation in the service of multilingualism,” the event is part of the ECOWAS 50th anniversary celebrations. It was chaired by H.E. Damtien Larbli Tchintchibidja, Vice President of the ECOWAS Commission, in the presence of the President of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), Dr George Agyekum Donkor, the new ECOWAS Resident Representative in Togo, H.E. Madam Deweh Emily Gray, the Head of the ECOWAS National Office in Togo, Mr Lagnie Bambimle and Mrs Olukemi Robinson-Atabuh, Director of Conference and Protocol at the ECOWAS Commission and institutional chair of PAMCIT II. Also in attendance were representatives of partner universities and guests from various walks of life.

In their welcome addresses, Dr George Agyekum Donkor and Mr Lagnie Bambimle stressed the importance of such a programme for students. It will prepare them to become experts to work in international organisations,  ultimately promoting local expertise and reducing dependence on foreign expertise.

The Director of Conference and Protocol at the ECOWAS Commission and institutional chair of PAMCIT II, Ms Olukemi Robinson-Atabuh, praised the commitment of ECOWAS senior officials, including the President of the ECOWAS Commission, H.E. Dr Omar Alieu Touray, to supporting PAMCIT II and increasing funding programmes targeting young people in the region. She highlighted the relevance of PAMCIT, noting that “for decades, our continent has been heavily dependent on external institutions for the professional training of interpreters and translators.” She also praised the role played by the BIDC in PAMCIT.

In her speech launching PAMCIT II, H.E. Damtien L. Tchintchibidja expressed the ECOWAS Commission’s clear commitment to ensuring the success of PAMCIT II by awarding scholarships to deserving West African nationals according to clearly defined criteria. She spoke on the technical support to the University of Lomé to improve teacher mobility, the harmonisation of curricula and ensuring that universities offer degrees of the same level to students from different universities.

She also stated that ECOWAS will coordinate the work of the PAMCIT Task Force, including the harmonisation of curricula, the mobility of interpretation and translation trainers, and technical support from the University of Lomé, among other activities.

Furthermore, Vice President Tchintchibidja sent a strong message to the Community: “With the launch of the programme today, let us remember that translation and interpreting go beyond words and speeches. Translators and interpreters build bridges and foster dialogue between different cultures and peoples. With PAMCIT II, we are investing in the interpreters of our aspirations and the translators of our common destiny. Let us never lose sight of the fact that translators and interpreters are not only facilitators of communication, but also the true architects of dialogue. They bear the noble responsibility, through words and ideas, of facilitating cooperation and dialogue in unity.”

H.E. Damitien L. Tchintchibidja then proceeded to open the ceremony before expressing hope that the new phase would mark a decisive turning point in the construction of an Africa where every voice can be heard, every language can be expressed and every institution can function effectively across linguistic borders. ‘With PAMCIT, Africa continues to affirm that multilingualism is not a barrier, but a bridge to unity, knowledge and progress,’ she concluded.

In his closing speech, the language coordinator, Mr Alphousseyni Diamanka, noted that for ECOWAS, the programme is directly aligned with the mission to promote regional integration, peace and development through multilingual dialogue and cooperation. In a region as linguistically diverse as West Africa, PAMCIT equips our professionals with the skills they need to overcome language barriers, enabling effective communication in diplomacy, trade and governance, peace and security, among other areas.

Tthe Pan-African Consortium for the Master’s Degree in Conference Interpreting and Translation (PAMCIT) was launched in 2009 as a strategic initiative to strengthen Africa’s capacity for high-level language services, with the support of the European Union and the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON).

PAMCIT is implemented by a network of five African universities, each offering a Master’s degree in Conference Interpreting and/or a Master’s degree in Translation to the best students in the faculties of interpreting and translation. The current member universities of the network are Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal,  the University of Ghana in Legon, Ghana, Universidade Jean-Piaget in Cabo Verde, the University of Lomé in Togo,the University of Buea in Cameroon, the University of Nairobi in Kenya and Universidade Pedagógica de Moçambique in Mozambique.

The programme was designed to equip African language professionals with the skills necessary to work in international organisations, regional bodies such as ECOWAS and the African Union, and other multilingual institutions. It was also designed to forestall the need for young Africans to leave the continent to pursue internationally recognised professional training.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).