By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
The government has announced a plan to establish a National Infrastructure for Peace that would be used to resolve all kinds of social and political conflicts internally within the framework of the nation’s culture and traditions, institutional capacities and resource capabilities.
Kemo Conteh, Head of Research, Strategy and Development at the National People’s Party (NPP) told The Voice exclusively that the initiative was made by the Office of the President and Ministry of Interior through a funding from the International Community through UNDP.
According to him, “the objective of this laudable initiative is to establish a sustainable national institutional statute infrastructure that will allow Gambian society and government to resolve all kinds of social and political conflicts internally, within the framework of our culture and traditions, institutional capacities and resource capabilities,” he said.
“The I4P will be created in statute and is anticipated by government to be equipped with full powers of autonomy and authority for leading and coordinating peace making and peace building initiatives in the Gambia. The structure will be modeled along the lines of the Ghana Peace Council and it may be called The Gambia Peace Council, or The Gambia Peace Commission or the Gambia Peace Committee, depending on the final recommendations of stakeholders in ongoing Regional and National Consultations,” he added.
According to him, it has been recommended in available study reports to establish this national infrastructure for peace at consultation level with branches in each region and district of the country.
“The Regional Consultations have been completed recently, UNDP and WANEP are gearing up for the National Consultative Process, preceded by needed data collection from Key Informants and other relevant stakeholders which is on-going now or perhaps already completed,” he continued.
He expressed hope that as soon as government is appropriately updated about this back ground work and Office of the President will give the green light to begin the process of legislative drafting and formal establishment of the structure.