On 18th August, 2013 I flew from my home city, Lilongwe to Harare via Nairobi and Lusaka. In spite of the short distance between Lilongwe and Harare, the journey took longer than twelve hours because there were no direct flights between the two cities. Going through Johannesburg would have been a shorter option but the flight was fully booked and we were forced to fly through Nairobi where we had to wait for more than six hours to board a flight connecting to Harare. With much of the international flights section of the Jomo Kenyatta Airport gutted by fire, waiting in makeshift tents in Kenya was hell. Departing home around 10 am on 18th August, I arrived in Harare around 1 am on 19th August. But this is not the point of this post.
Throughout my blog and my CV, I have claimed possessing superior planning skills. I am in Harare from 19th August to 31st August to further sharpen this skill at the SADC Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre. The course is facilitated by seasoned consulting planners with vast experience as planners with the UN and the AU and it draws participants from the military, police, correction services and civilian components from all the fifteen SADC member states. The aim of the course is to equip middle-level managers in these sectors with skills in planning for peacekeeping missions in the SADC Region. Over the two weeks we shall be involved lectures, syndicate work and plenary presentations and discussions.
The end product of the course will be a peacekeeping mission plan of a hypothetical troubled country, Carana, located on the hypothetical island continent of Kisiwa off the Eastern Coast of Africa. So far, we have read the scenario that depicts the situation in Carana and in our syndicates, have identified the key actors and their relationships using a graphical analytical technique called relationship mapping. We also identified the problems that cause or contribute to the instability in Carana, classifying them as either root causes, core issues or effects. We used the conflict tree as our analytical tool for this purpose. Having done this analysis, each of the four syndicates presented their relationship maps and conflict trees to the plenary where, guided by our experienced mentors, each presentation was rigorously peer reviewed.
I hope that by the end of the course not only will I have improved my planning skills, but I will also have brushed up my presentation skills, teamwork skills as well as analytical skills.
