By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Fumbisi (U/E), Dec 4, GNA-The National Peace Council has advised local community stakeholders to be interested, involved and watch out for critical issues that trigger conflicts in their communities and report to security agencies to help maintain the prevailing peace in the country.
According to the Council, stakeholders at the local level such as chiefs, women groups, youth groups, assembly members, opinion leaders among others were critical stakeholders in the security architecture and their potentials must be harnessed to protect the sovereignty of country from internal conflict and external attacks.
Mr Ali Anankpieng, the Executive Secretary of the Upper East Regional Peace Council gave the advice at Fumbisi on the sidelines of a capacity building training on early warning and response for community members, youth, women, traditional and religious leaders in the Builsa South District.
It was organised by the National Peace Council in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with support from the government of Denmark under its Peace and Stabilisation Fund.
It formed part of an 18-month UNDP Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) Reginal project dubbed, “PVE Atlantic Corridor project” being implemented in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Cote D’Ivoire.
The project seeks to strengthen mechanisms and approaches for early warning and response to violent extremism at target locations, strengthen socioeconomic resilience of at-risk youth and women and other vulnerable populations, promote and disseminate alternative and counter-narrative messages including hate speech to prevent conflict.
Mr Anankpieng said apart from land disputes, farmer-herder conflict and electoral violence that had threatened the peace of the country, activities of violent extremists had become more pronounced and there was the need for the communities to be prepared.
He said his outfit and its partners had envisioned that empowering the community structures and building their capacity with early warning signals would build community resilience and help them to support security agencies with relevant information to prevent conflicts.
“Builsa South is one of the food baskets of the region and we believe that a lot is happening in terms of the number people who come in to undertake farming activities, so it is possible there can be land issues.
“We therefore thought it wise to engage these critical stakeholders to work together to prevent some of these violence including land disputes, electoral violence, farmer-herder conflict and most importantly the issue of violent extremism,” he added.
The Executive Secretary urged the stakeholders, especially the youth, to serve as platforms to educate their colleagues about violent extremism and help report issues that trigger conflict to security agencies.
Ms Victoria Azongyingaaru Chansa, a participant lauded the efforts of the National Peace Council and its donors for the enlightenment and noted that it would go a long way to prevent conflicts in their communities.
She indicated that during conflicts and instability, it was women and their children and other vulnerable groups who suffered the brunt and urged all stakeholders to support interventions that inured to the prevention of conflicts in their communities.
Mr Robert Asanlaga, the Assemblyman for Kanjarga Central, said peace was central to the development of their communities and expressed optimism that the lessons learnt would awaken their consciousness to help promote peaceful coexistence.
GNA