The Upper East Regional Peace Council, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has built the capacity of stakeholders in the Kassena Nankana West District on peace building.
They were trained on violent extremism and how to identify early signs of conflict and radicalization to facilitate a timely response.
The three-day capacity building workshop took place in Bolgatanga, the Upper East Regional capital and was attended by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), local government officials, security personnel, community leaders, youth and women groups among others.
Speaking at the event, Mr Ali Anankpieng, the Upper East Regional Peace Council Executive Secretary, said the topics of the programme were crucial to the Council’s mandate.
He said the threat of violent extremism reaching southwards toward the Gulf of Guinea haunts many West African countries, including Ghana.
Mr Anankpieng said extremist recent attacks on countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso pointed to a fact that they were capable of launching an attack on Ghana if nothing was done to mitigate it.
The Executive Secretary said participants were carefully selected from the Kassena-Nankana West District because the district was one of the major entry points to the Upper East Region.
Dr Angela Lusigi, the Resident Representative of UNDP, said Ghana was noted to be a beacon of peace in the Sub-Region and Africa and that had contributed to strong democratic and development gains.
She said, however, the peace was being threatened by the rising land and chieftaincy conflicts, violent crime driven by small arms proliferation and the increasing cases of political vigilantism.
She said increased acts of crime, insecurity and violent extremism in the neighbouring countries also posed a threat to Ghana’s peace and stability.
She said border communities were the most vulnerable as they were prone to spillovers of conflicts, terrorism and organized crimes from the Sahel region.
“Since 2019, areas along the northern parts of Ghana have experienced at different times the influx of asylum seekers from neighbouring countries due to the violence,” She indicated.
Dr Lusigi underscored the need for all, especially the state to counter those threats by addressing the root causes and drivers of violent extremism which often include unemployment, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, underserved communities, perceptions of injustice, poor governance, among others.
“Preventing violent extremism requires both a security and national approach to provide the architecture, context, and strategy to prevent and counter the threat,” she added.
Dr Lusigi said UNDP was committed to sustaining peace in Ghana and called on CSOs, religious, faith-based organizations and traditional leaders, the media, state security, the private sector and all Ghanaians to rally behind the Government’s efforts to promote peace and prevent violent extremism.
