Director Meets Chairperson of Friends of EASF

The EASF Director Brig Gen Getachew Shiferaw Fayisa together with senior officials from the Standby Force held a meeting with the Chairperson of the Friends of EASF, Col. Joern Rasmussen at the Hermosa Hotel in Karen, Nairobi, on 24th September 2021.

The meeting aimed at updating the Chairperson of the Friends of EASF on the progress being made in preparations for the EASF Policy Organs' Meetings (POM) to be held in the near future. The EASF POMs comprise three meetings which are run consecutively. These are; the Experts Working Group Meeting (EWG) which analyzes and drafts discussion points gathered from the Secretariat, the Meeting of Chiefs of Defence Staff (CDFs) and the Council of Ministers for Defence and Security Meeting. The output of EWG meeting forms the input of CDFs meeting, whose output is again the input for the meeting of the Council of Ministers of Defence and Security of the Eastern Africa region. Decisions which are made by the Council are final and are passed over to the Secretariat for implementation over a predefined period.

The Director and his team also informed the Chairperson about the drafted Activity Plan 2022 as well as the preparations for the  Command Post Exercise (CPX) 2021 which is scheduled to take place near the end of the year in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Friends of EASF is a group of economically affluent countries which came together under this umbrella body in order to support the regional peace-keeper in initiatives geared towards harnessing peace and stability in the Eastern Africa region.    

Brig Gen Fayisa thanked Col. Rasmussen for his passionate engagement in mobilizing the Friends of EASF who have all along remained consistent in their partnership in matters of capacity building ever since the Standby Force was created. The Director expressed his confidence that this partnership would forge ahead in the same spirit as EASF continues to ensure the maintenance of peace and security in the Eastern Africa region now and in the future.

During the meeting, the Director was accompanied by the Head of Peace Operations' Department, Brig Gen Henry Isoke, the Joint Chief of Staff, Brig Gen Dr. PSC Osman Abbas Mohamed Osman and the Military Assistant, Lt Col Boniface Chomba.