AFRICAN CRISIS RESPONSE INITIATIVE (ACRI)

 

Vision Statement

The U.S. vision for the ACRI is a greatly enhanced African capacity to perform peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations in a timely, professionally competent manner. ACRI aims to provide equipment and training to 10,000-12,000 African soldiers in well-prepared companies and battalions, commanded by trained African officers and capable of deployed operations with consistent doctrine and procedures, using interoperable communications.

The ACRI Interagency Working Group has identified equipment and training requirements for working with selected, democratic African partners over a three- to five-year period, leading to self-sustainment on the part of African peacekeeping contingents. The United States has completed initial training with battalion-sized contingents from Senegal, Uganda and Malawi and began training a Malian battalion in early February. Training with a Ghanaian battalion is scheduled for early April, in cooperation with Belgian military trainers. Later this year, training will begin in Ethiopia, the first country to commit two battalions and a brigade staff.

 

Main Challenges

Africans are intent upon shaping their own future, in security matters as in other aspects of governance. The United States is interested in working with democratic states in Africa where the military respects human rights and meets professional military standards in order to expand their capacity for peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations. We also are looking to African states to bring African solutions to the sensitive issue of command and control for brigade and higher levels of deployed operations.

On the regional level, the Organization of African Unity began to address international peacekeeping initiatives, at the ministerial level, late last year. At the international level, the ACRI has provided the United States with a vehicle for coordinating its African peacekeeping approach with other concerned nations. The United States hopes to see this coordination instrument for both donors and troop contributors extended by institutionalizing the African Peacekeeping Support Group, which first met at the invitation of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York in December 1997.

 

Conclusion

The African Crisis Response Initiative comes at a critical time, for the U.S. and for Africa, as we work to accelerate Africa's full integration into a world of stable, democratic, and economically productive states.