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Over the past year there have been a lot of developments in PEP: existing projects have become more sharply focussed on training peacekeepers than ever before. New projects have been established in Turkey, Mozambique, Guatemala, China, Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo and a number of projects have reached maturity and been handed over to their host partners. This year’s international PEP conference will give PEP Managers and Trainers the opportunity to meet with representatives from UK’s Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development. It will also give us the opportunity to demonstrate clearly to our sponsors how our projects have progressed and how PEP enables uniformed personnel to participate in international peace support operations as a direct result of Peacekeeping English Project programmes and activities.
We will have the opportunity to look at how PEP is becoming more fleet of foot with new and more flexible project models such as the Cuba initiative and its different approaches for new project bids, in Namibia for example. We will look at the findings of the McClure consultancy including how the PEP Steering group has been reformed, how duplication of effort can be avoided in scoping new projects and how other ELT options can be provided where there is not the context or funding for a full project option, such as Vietnam at present. We will also look at new ways of managing project activities, materials and resources now that we no longer have the three activity co-ordinator posts for Materials and Resources, Testing and Training. We will have a ‘Turkish Bazaar’ a session in which project teams will display and discuss their projects materials and products. There will be a presentation from Clarity ELT representatives on how our products can be globally disseminated and how we can meet the challenges of communicating more effectively as our project becomes more globally diverse.
A secondary theme of this conference will be exploring avenues for alternative models of funding. These could include ways of encouraging partner states and local ministries to commit more to ELT and a session on marketing our products to the private sector. We will look at how PEP could market to UN organisations such as UNDP. PEP Kazakhstan for example are in the process of working out how they can accept funds from UNDP Kazakhstan to set up a mini ‘border guards / counter narcotics project”. We will take this opportunity to update ourselves on actual and potential partnerships, for example the work we have done on running ESP courses over the last few years with the NATO language school in Budapest. We will also work together on contributing ideas and suggestions for a pilot start-up pack that will be used for scoping new projects and should provide very useful information for managers starting up new projects.
We will also learn more about a new initiative coming from PEP Kazakhstan where project Manager Ben Fisher has developed a database for producing statistics on numbers of personnel participating in PEP English language training programmes, the numbers of key personnel (particularly peacekeepers) trained, deployments made and STANAG results achieved. This database would enable all our projects to provide a valuable record of our alumni which will be very important information for our sponsors, our host partners and PEP managers alike. We will also learn about Lithuania’s Integrated Training for Peace Support and Security Management staff from Roma Valiukiene, there will be a session on ICELT from our Ukraine-based trainers David Watkins and Phil Brabbs, another on TKT from Turkey-based trainer Raymond Kerr and many more.
We have not had the opportunity to come together since our conference in Belgrade two years ago and I for one look forward to meeting new colleagues and all the colleagues that I have not had the opportunity to meet and share ideas and experiences with since then. I hope that the 2007 Istanbul conference will prove professionally satisfying, well-organised and well-worth waiting for.
Alan Rutt, Conference Organiser and PEP Manager Turkey
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