Africa has seen its fair share of conflict in the last 50 years, with nations like Uganda, Angola, Burundi and the Great Lake Region-Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia as well as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Ivory Coast all having been in the firing line. The resulting tragedy not only gravely affected the progress and growth of the continent, but also more importantly took thousands of lives and destroyed immeasurable amount of property.

Against the backdrop of these conflicts, there have been growing calls to develop a comprehensive plan or set in place a program to address conflict on the continent.  Peace building experts are of the belief that engaging the people of Africa in a face-to-face dialogue and conducting frequent classroom lectures could play a major role to educate people on the danger and far reaching effects of conflict.

Allied to this is the need for countries to put aside growing disagreement on national issues in favor of common solutions.

Pushing peace

Some countries across the region have set up their own model of peace building institutions to teach peace building and promote conflict prevention. One of these that is playing an active role on the continent is the Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation (KAICT).

Named in honor of the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Dr. Kofi Annan, the student-training institute is fully operational in Ghana, the home country of the former UN chief. In 2007, at the end of his tenure as the UN Secretary General, Dr. Annan visited Liberia and met with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and senior officials of her government.

During that visit, President Sirleaf asked Dr. Annan to establish a branch of KAICT in the country to help change perceptions toward peace and build up a positive attitude toward sustaining peace.

KAICT has subsequently been operational in Liberia since 2007, collaborating with other peace building institutions across the continent as well as universities in the UK.

Dr. Anthony Lombeh Hena is the acting director of the KAICT Liberia, which functions as an independent institute but operates on the main campuses of the University of Liberia, the West African country's highest institution of learning.

He said the institute was created to provide knowledge based on three main objectives, which include establishing and maintaining policy research and a dialogue program, and developing human resource capacity to advance conflict resolution, peace building, security, gender main screening in Liberia and beyond and to coordinate the development of education resources into the areas of conflict, peace, security, gender and development studies. KAICT sets out to ensure that the highest international standards are achieved in its area of operation.

Providing justification while he thinks, the institute was established in Liberia and why its work is concentrated in Africa for now, specifically the West African region.