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ISGA Contributes to Training African Officers in Military Diplomacy

The Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) of Leiden University contributed to the design and teaching of modules of this year’s edition of the Ministry of Defence’s ‘International Military Cooperation Course Africa’.

Developed ‘in the spirit of defence diplomacy by the Netherlands Defence College on behalf of the Directorate of International Military Cooperation’ the three weeks course was designed for officers and civilians from sub-Saharan African nations who actively contribute to international military cooperation with regard to peace and security on the African continent. Participants ranged from military and liaison officers from Benin, Burundi, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa as well as civilian representatives from the African Union.

Design and teach

Joachim Koops, Professor of Security Studies and Scientific Director of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs was invited to design and teach the module ‘Military Diplomacy in an era of Complex Challenges’. The module was taught in hybrid format with an online introductory module and an on-location seminar and training session.

‘It was an excellent opportunity to draw on and apply ISGA’s extensive interdisciplinary research and teaching expertise and to deepen the cooperation between ISGA, the Netherlands Defence Academy as well as a variety of African countries’, Professor Koops underlined.

Intensive cooperation

In November 2020, the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and the Netherlands Defence Academy signed a far-reaching Memorandum of Understanding to intensify cooperation in the fields of education, research and societal impact. This also included the appointment of Frans Osinga as Special Chair of War Studies and Bas Rietjens as Special Chair of Intelligence in War and Conflict.

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