Cote d’Ivoire / Chief of United Nations Mission in Liberia visits UNOCI
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, July 8, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Cote d’Ivoire, Y. J. Choi, today received his counterpart from the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), Ellen Margrethe Loj, “to discuss inter-mission relations,” UNOCI’s Spokesman, Hamadoun Touré said on Thursday in Abidjan.
Speaking at UNOCI’s weekly press conference, Mr. Touré added: “They discussed issued related to the United Nations’ assistance to improve the security situation in the two countries”. They talked about how the United Nations can help the Ivorian and Liberian authorities re-establish calm among their respective population and security along their common border.
Mrs Loj will also met with members of the Diplomatic Corps in Côte d’ Ivoire, said Mr. Touré, adding that her visit will end this afternoon.
Turning to other matters, Mr. Touré highlighted the monthly activities of UNOCI’s forces, including carrying out more some 4,812 ground and air patrols during the month of June. UNOCI peacekeepers also carried out mixed patrols with members of the Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI) in an effort to reassure the population.
“The issue of security is still among the highest priorities for UNOCI and this is the reason it is in the process of establishing nine new military camps in the west and centre of the country as well as in Aboisso,” he said.
This issue also dominates meeting between military chiefs of the Impartial and Ivorian Forces, said Mr. Touré, who added that several other related issues had been discussed, such as the takeover of security provisions at Abidjan Port by the gendarmerie and police, the deployment of forces in the Greater West, efforts being made by the Ministries of Justice and Defence to get prisons in Dabou and Bassam functioning again and the modalities for the transfer of responsibilities for security provisions in the Abidjan neighbourhoods of Cocody and Plateau from the FRCI to the Gendarmerie and Police. Asked about the continued presence of roadblocks despite the fact they were illegal, Mr. Touré said that it was important to avoid remounting roadblocks which had been removed.
With regard to the UNOCI’s sensitization activities, the Spokesman announced that a certain number had been planned by the Mission in several localities with the aim of strengthening social cohesion and promoting national reconciliation among youths, between military elements, with members of political parties and civil society groups through sports.
The Representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Marie-Noelle Koyara, was at the press conference to talk about food security. She told journalists about a visit by a multi-disciplinary mission which was in the country following a request from the Ivorian Government to draw up an agriculture programme and contribute to finding solutions to food security in Côte d’Ivoire.
In this regard, one of the experts of the mission, Adama Taoko, presented two aspects of their work. He explained that they had come to identify urgent needs and then propose immediate action to meet them. They also have to identify ways of covering the financing of these actions and other complementary needs to address the post-crisis difficulties, he added.
Mr. Taoko said that an aspect of their work consisted of accompanying the government and the actors in rural and agricultural development to relaunch growth in the sector. In order to do this, he explained, it will be a question of merging the two policy documents drawn up by the government with all these actors, especially the national programme for food security and nutrition and the national programme for agricultural investment. “In addition, the expert mission and all the actors should accompany the government to identify an action plan for the round table of donors scheduled to be held in September, 2011.
SOURCE
Mission of UN in Côte d’Ivoire
