Commencing June 2005, NATO has provided the African Union (AU) with a wide range of Training and Educational Support as one of three key lines of effort within the NATO-African Union Cooperation (NAUC) Mission. The mission is intended to tangibly contribute to enhancing the AU’s security framework in line with their needs and capabilities.
During March 2025, JFC Naples organised the delivery of a Mobile Training Solution for the AU that was delivered by the Crisis Management and Disaster Response Centre of Excellence, and hosted at the International Peace Support Institute, located in Addis Ababa. The course was designed to provide attendees with extensive knowledge of NATOs Crisis Response at the Political-Strategic level within the framework of a Comprehensive Approach to Security.
Encompassing a very broad range of attendance from across the AU, course attendees included 21 officers and 4 civilians, from the African Union Peace Support Division, the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense, the Economic Community of Central Africa, the Eastern Africa Stand-by Force, the North Africa Regional Community, the Multinational Joint Task Force of Chad, and the African Union Stabilization Support Mission to Somalia.
The training staff introduced the participants to NATO’s Operational Planning Process, with specific focus on the development of Courses of Action (COAs), in the context of a contemporary crisis. Feedback from the students underlined their appreciation particularly of the practical sessions which required their active engagement within the syndicates work. Whilst this was the first time that many of the attendees had been exposed to this NATO style of crisis management planning, many were enthusiastic and expressed an appetite from their various organisations for further training where possible. As the first Military Training Team to visit and deliver training in Addis Ababa since 2021, the COE and JFC’s NAUC Core Team remain optimistic that the success of this first course will lead to increased uptake of training opportunities by the AU in the future.