Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

CCCPA, Switzerland, UNDP Ink Cooperation for Peace


Mon 13 May 2019 | 06:04 PM
Mohamed Wadie

The Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding (CCCPA), hosted the signing ceremony of cooperation agreement with the Government of Switzerland and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on “Enhancing Peace, Security and Stability in Africa”.

The ceremony was attended by H.E. Paul Garnier, Ambassador of Switzerland to Egypt, Ms. Randa Aboul-Hosn, UNDP-Resident Representative a.i. and CCCPA Director General Ashraf Swelam. Also, in attendance was Ms. Corinne Henchoz Pignani, Head of Cooperation in the Embassy of Switzerland in Egypt.

In line with the priorities of the Egyptian Chairmanship of the African Union (AU) and those of the Swiss cooperation strategy in Egypt (2017-2020), the project contributes to building African capacities for combating human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. The cooperation is important since Africa has been facing an unprecedented increase in the scale and complexity of forced migration, refugee flows, internal displacement and human trafficking in recent years.

The Egyptian-Swiss cooperation will also contribute to mainstreaming migration into development policies and enhancing capacities for developing national and regional strategies, in addition to providing mechanisms to combat human trafficking and smuggling of migrants.

CCCPA Director General Swelam expressed CCCPA’s gratitude and appreciation to the Government of Switzerland for playing a great role in addressing peace and security challenges in Africa. “This collaboration is timely due to the scale and complexity of migration in Africa. It also comes at a time when the African Union announced 2019 as the Year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced People.

“Switzerland welcomes this joint initiative with CCCPA and UNDP on addressing the challenges of migration within the framework of talks and cooperation program between Switzerland and the Government of Egypt,"  Ambassador Garnier reaffirmed during the signing ceremony. "Fighting against human trafficking and smuggling of migrants is a priority for Switzerland and is a central issue in the region."

Garnier added that this cooperation is very likely to increase given the essential role played by Egypt, which stands at the crossroads of migratory routes through the African continent to the Mediterranean Sea.

In her remarks, UNDP Resident Representative a.i., Ms. Aboul-Hosn congratulated the Government of Switzerland and CCCPA on the new collaboration and confirmed UNDP’s commitment to continue to expand this successful cooperation. She emphasized that “The work of the center is solid and relevant to issues of the region and Egypt. On another note, she commended CCCPA’s work as “an excellent practice, and many organizations want to follow suit and go international.”

CCCPA is an AU Center of excellence in training, capacity building, and research, under the suzerainty of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.