The trial training for the Triangular Partnership Project, organized by the Africa Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM) saw ten military personnel from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda successfully complete training on how to operate and maintain heavy engineering equipment and broaden their engineering skills.
“The rapid deployment of engineering capabilities to peacekeeping missions in Africa remains an urgent requirement. All professional soldiers know that military operations cannot be successful without logistics and without engineering,” Banbury said in a statement issued by AMISOM in Nairobi on Monday.
“All too often in our peacekeeping missions, we have good infantry units but we do not have logistics and engineering capabilities to support them. And this triangular partnership is designed to address that critical shortfall,” he noted.
The training under the tutelage of the UN Department of Field Support (UN-DFS) hopes to build the engineering capacity of African troop contributing countries (TCCs) through training, mentoring and provision of operational equipment prior to their deployment to peacekeeping missions.
Banbury said the delays in the deployment of UN troops due to lack of infrastructure could reduce chances for peace and erode trust in the international community, by populations living in stressed and conflict environments.
He said the rapid deployment of troops into well situated and defended camps can greatly improve conditions on the ground, build confidence, provide stability and ensure that the United Nations is able to create and maintain peace.
The just concluded training is a prelude to several full-fledged trainings, that will take place starting 2016, and which will equip and deploy African military engineering units to UN peacekeeping missions. Enditem
Source: Xinhua
