US Army Africa, Malawi synchronize efforts leading up to Southern Accord 2016

Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Lance Pounds | Land Force representatives from the Southern African Development Community conduct planning for the upcoming peacekeeping and disaster relief exercise Southern Accord 2016 at the final planning conference in Lilongwe Malawi on April 13, 2016. (U.S. Army Africa courtesy photo)  

LILONGWE, MALAWI

04.15.2016

Story by Kymberley Jurado 

U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa

Brig. Gen. Jon A. Jensen, USARAF deputy commanding general, and Col. C.W. Kachala, the deputy chief of training of the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) welcomed all participating nations and staffs earlier this week to set the course for the final planning event.

“We are approximately 100 days away from the beginning of our exercise,” said Jensen. “There has been a tremendous amount of work, thought, planning, coordination and synchronization that has already taken place leading us to this final planning event. Here we can all come together with our African and European partners to understand how we all do business individually, so we can all do business better collectively.”

Kachala also emphasized the significance of the planning event and the exercise.

“The Southern Accord exercise is a very important capacity building exercise for the SADC states because it articulates the objectives of leadership, strategic goals, enhances physical security and promotes common values,” he said.

Southern Accord 2016 is another chapter in the course of continued security cooperation between USARAF and the MDF. Malawi also hosted Southern Accord 2014. USARAF also collaborated with the MDF to establish the first senior noncommissioned officers’ course at the Malawi Armed Forces College. Over 100 NCOs have graduated from the academy since it began in January 2014 and today it remains the only regional institution in Africa for senior non-commissioned officers.

In February this year, Malawi and the United States signed a Military Cooperation Agreement setting the framework for continued military cooperation, assistance and training collaboration. This week’s event is only one example of how military ties between the U.S. and Malawi continue to gain momentum.

“Malawi has a strong record of military discipline, peaceful coexistence, defense of the constitution, and leadership in supporting regional peace and stability,” said U.S. Ambassador, Virginia Palmer.

Southern Accord is a series of exercises designed to enhance SADC member states’ capability to support forward-deployed forces as a part of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) mission; however, this year USARAF and Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs added another layer to the exercise by incorporating disaster relief response.

In 2015, flooding ravaged southern Malawi and the president declared a state of disaster in 15 districts. According to the UN, the floods displaced approximately 230,000 Malawians and over 100 died. The flooding damaged infrastructure, destroyed farms, leveled homes, and caused communities to live in high-risk displacement sites that lacked water, sanitation and means for adequate hygiene. The incorporation of disaster response into the exercise will further prepare regional countries for dealing with such events.

Further punctuating the relevance of the exercise, on April 12, during the final planning event, the president of Malawi declared a state of national disaster in the country due to drought and food crisis. SADC also declared a state of emergency in the region where nearly 28-30 million people face severe hunger this year, a figure that could rise quickly to 49 million if no action is taken, according to CARE a leading global humanitarian organization.

“This year’s Southern Accord is unique to all iterations of the Accord Series,” said Jensen “We will help facilitate a disaster response exercise with Malawi’s civil relief agency. We brought in some disaster response experts to help us plan. For the first time in the Accord Series, we have linked two separate scenarios that will commence simultaneously: one for peacekeeping and the other for disaster relief, which helps the MDF, regional militaries, and DODMA build upon a whole of government approach toward disaster response.”

By the close of the event, planners finalized their synchronization efforts and parted ways understanding that this year’s event is critical to the success of future crisis responses in Malawi and Africa’s southern region. The representatives that return for execution of the exercise in August will bring their subject matter expertise abounding toward the African Horizon.

• Date Taken: 04.15.2016
• Date Posted: 04.15.2016 12:50
• Story ID: 195498
• Location: LILONGWE, MW