The Malawi Defense Force, in partnership with U.S. Africa Command is hosting representatives from more than 35 nations from across Africa, Europe and the United States for the 12th annual Africa Endeavor 2017 (AE-17) Leader Symposium in Lilongwe between 21 and 25 August.
“The Malawi Defense Force is very happy to be able to host this important symposium AE-17,” said Gen. Griffin S. Phiri, Commander Malawi Defense Force. “Meetings like this make us all more secure so we build partnerships with African nations they build partnerships with each other and this is all done with the auspices or in partnership with the African Union operability and awareness of cyber security threats gained from meetings like this,” said Virginia E. Palmer, U.S. Amb. to Malawi. ” For this reason, meetings like this are incredibly important to getting international peacekeeping to operate more effectively but also making sure we talk to each other in times of crisis.”
The theme for AE-17 is “Interconnecting Africa through communications Interoperability.” Participants will focus on and discuss issues related to cyber security and cyber defense through senior leader engagements, communications symposium and a capstone event with a technology exposition.
“This is a very important symposium because it gives us along with our colleagues the opportunity to work together and share information, so that we can learn to better communicate and address the issues we are facing,” said Phiri.
“This is about bringing all of the communications professionals together so that we can talk about communications as we go forward and make sure that we standardize processes and everybody is working collectively together because we know that the strength of us together is much more stronger than the strength of each of us alone, ” said Lt. Gen. James C. Vechery, Deputy to the Commander for Military Operations U.S. Africa Command.
Sponsored by U.S. Africa Command, Africa Endeavor is an annual senior leader symposium and communications symposium designed to help develop multinational communications practices for peacekeeping and disaster response missions mandated by the African Union and the United Nations.
The primary objective of African Endeavor is to develop interoperability among African Partner Nations in their command, control, communications, computers and information (C4I) systems through: developing shared training and providing information on lessons learned from exercises and operations; developing standard processes and procedures; documenting and sharing Standard Operating Procedures.
Africa Endeavor provides a venue for military leaders to review and analyze current abilities of their forces to communicate during multinational operations and to develop standardized training and procedures to improve future training and support. Since 2006, Africa Endeavor has facilitated training and engagements between the African Union, European Union, NATO and regional partners and trained nearly 2,000 communications specialists.