GHANA ARMED FORCES HOSTS AFRICA ENDEAVOUR 2010

The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) on Monday hosted the 2010 Africa Endeavour (AE), a US-Africa Command’s Annual communication exercise that focuses on inter-operation and information sharing, in Accra.
The exercise between the US and Africa partners is to develop command, control communication tactics, techniques and procedures that can used by the African Union in support of humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and peacekeeping missions.
This exercise was under the distinguished patronage of Lt Gen. JH Smith, Minister of Defense and HE Mr. Donald Teitelbaum-US Ambassador on the theme “Uniting Africa Militaries and partners through communication and information systems interoperability”.
Participants are delegates from 34 countries and 4 other regional and sub-regional bodies from Africa. Some of the participating countries are: Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Congo Republic, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Gambia.
Lt Gen. JH Smith, Minister of Defense in his address, elaborated on one of African Union’s objective which is to promote peace, security and stability on the continent.
He added that there will be a need for a united and collaborative front in ensuring this objective.
“As we live in an interconnected world, disasters, trans border crimes like terrorism, drugs, small arms trafficking and proliferation of small arms, know no borders”, he stated.
The Minister advised that since these acts pose major threats to global peace and security, it is necessary to form a united front with their partners and confront them decisively before they bring any destabilizing situations to them.
Lt. General JH Smith in declaring the Test exercise opened, urged the Union to be guided by the same zeal, dedication and commitment with which they had tackled all previous exercise to work towards achieving their goals of developing a workable concept to support the employment of the African Standby Force.
Addressing the gathering, Brigadier-General Joseph Searyoh, Director of Defense Communication and Information Systems of GAF, said information transcends every sphere of activity including military operation.
He added that in multi-national operation environment information is one important factor that enables unity of effort.
The Brigadier-General explained that Africa Endeavour holds the key to this all important factor of information sharing, aimed at harmonizing procedures, tactics and techniques among us.