The Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS), which is secretariat of the Tana Forum, will hold its tenth forum in 2021 after successfully convening 9 editions of the annual event since 2012.
A release copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, by Yonas Berhane, Communications and Prolide Management Cordinator, said, This year marked the tenth anniversary of the Forum, on the theme, “Managing Security Threats: Building Resilience for the Africa We Want.”
Due to measures and protocols necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 Forum will be conducted in a hybrid format consisting of a limited number of participants gathering in Bahir Dar and a majority of them tuning in virtually. This year’s Forum, will take place from 25-29 October, 2021.
By engaging current and former Heads of State and Government, the African Union and RECs, the private sector, decision-makers and representatives from multilateral bodies, the Forum provides an informal platform for key African stakeholders to engage in frank, relevant, and candid discussions, and work towards effective African-led solutions to the continent’s most pressing security challenges.
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“Tana Forum has proved itself worthy of being taken seriously as a veritable platform for energetic and purposeful conversation on pressing, actionable and relevant peace and security challenges facing Africa. Only through sustainable, long term funding can the AU follow an independent agenda that speaks to the common practices and needs of its member states., ”Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, sad about the 7th Tana Forum, 2018.
The Tana High-Level Forum is an initiative that is a response to the August 2009 African Union Tripoli Declarations. In the African Union‘s Declaration on the Elimination of Conflicts and the Promotion of Sustainable Peace in Africa (Tripoli Declaration, August 2009), African Heads of State and Government designated peace and security as a collective “intellectual challenge” and called for the elaboration of “African-led solutions” to take it on. The Tana Forum is organised by the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of Addis Ababa University in response to this call.
The objectives of the 2021 edition of the High-level Tana Forum are:
To provide preeminence to African citizens in the discourse on security and resilience across multiple political, economic and social spaces;
To mobilise and synthesise knowledge and insights that would assist a wide range of national, regional and continental actors in contributing better to shaping the future of the ‘Africa We Want’ in a more promising and assuring direction;
To explore issues at the intersection of building a people-enabled peace, security and resilience in line with the African Union theme of the year: “Arts, Culture and Heritage”;
To evaluate Africa’s contribution to the management of the covid-19 pandemic, including investment in research and knowledge products that reflects Africa’s solution to a global problem.
It is envisaged the Forum’s discussions will:
Apprehend and capture how diversity, equity and inclusion are reflected in Africa’s international partnership/engagement;
Unpack Africa’s acute climate change and climate resilience challenges that have significant security implications for citizens in the context of food insecurity, migration, agrarian conflict, access to water, to highlight a few;
Assess how a resilient health system and the rollout of equitable vaccines constitute an important source of in/security to other sectors at this critical period;
Emphasise on mobilising and building the type of home-grown and local resilience that allows the voice and agency of African citizens to blossom;
Weigh Africa’s contribution to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, including investment in research and knowledge products that reflects Africa’s solution to a global problem.
Interrogate the health impacts, and explore other multifaceted aspects in the context of peace and security, including how health systems create security challenges and vice versa.
