H.E. Leena Pylvänäinen, Ambassador of Finland to Nigeria and H.E Annika Hahn-Englund Ambassador of Sweden to Nigeria, both paid reciprocal courtesy visits to the KAIPTC on 11th September 2023 and 17th October 2023 respectfully, following an earlier visit to their offices in Abuja by the management of the Centre.
H.E. Leena Pylvänäinen and her delegation received a full briefing on the activities of the Centre including the Centre’s initiatives on Women, Youth, Peace and Security. She was accompanied by her Deputy Head of Mission Mr. Topias Tamminen and Mr. Jan Wahlberg, Ambassador for Peace Mediation, (MFA Finland),
H.E. Leena Pylvänäinen presenting a book “100 innovations from Finland” to the former deputy Commandant, Air Cmdre George Arko Dadzie
H.E. Leena Pylvänäinen was particulary impressed with the Centres scope and reach of its work and held fruitful discussions with the KAIPTC team on entry points of collaboration with Finnish insitutions. Discussions centered on peace mediation, climate peace security, WPS and YPS Agenda, water diplomacy among others.
The delegation with some KAIPTC members of staff
H.E Annika Hahn-Englund signing the KAIPTC visitors book
H.E Annika Hahn-Englund’s visit to the Centre reaffirms the longstanding partnership between the Swedish Government and the KAIPTC.
The Swedish Government under the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) has supported the KAIPTC to operationalize the WPS Agenda through several initiatives including the development of a training manual on “Preventing and Responding to Gender-Based Violence in Africa”; the development of the “Women Youth and Violent Extremism Course”; and the development of a standardised template on data gathering and training manual to train member states on the usage of the Continental Results Framework in collaboration with the AU Office of the Special Envoy on WPS.
Sweden also supports the running of the Gender Advisors Course done jointly with the Folke Bernadotte Academy. She used the opportunity to inspect ongoing works for the new Women, Youth, Peace and Security Institute office Block and also visited a course in session.
