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OSSREA Liaison Officers Meet

The OSSREA Liaison Officers’ Summit was held in Nairobi, Utalii Hotel. The meeting was held from 17 – 18 May 2007. All OSSREA Executive Committee members, except Prof Linda E.R. De Vries, attended this assembly. The OSSREA Executive President Prof. Rosalia S. Katapa presided over this meeting.

The deliberations focused on three main items:

In this summit, Dr Alfred G Nhema, the Executive Secretary, made the first welcoming address in which he reported on the major activities carried out since the previous meeting of the Liaison Officers was held in April 2006. He said that the secretariat had prepared Human Resource Policy and Procedures, and Financial Policy and Procedures Manuals, which had been subsequently reviewed and approved by the OSSREA Executive Committee. These two manuals have been in operation since January 2007. He also briefed the participants on what have been implemented by the various grants and fellowships programmes and capacity building training in the areas of Social Science Research Methodology and Gender. In reference to seminars and workshops, he reported that OSSREA had organised a major international conference on ‘The Social Sciences and HIV/AIDS in Africa: New Insights and Policy Perspectives.’ OSSREA also organised workshops in the areas of conflict prevention and management with the African Union as well as jointly organising a Research Capacity Building Workshop on ‘Developing Peace Research Skills in Africa’ with United Nations University for Peace (UPEACE). This Training Workshop was held from 23 to 27 April in Addis Ababa.

Dr Nhema reiterated that the direction set by the Executive Committee was that the Chapters should focus on publishing their research and workshop outputs as this is the only way to demonstrate the relevance of OSSREA to the academic, research and policy stake-holders in the two sub-regions. Following this, the Executive Secretary invited Prof. Katapa to officially open the Meeting.

In her opening speech, Prof. Katapa reviewed what had transpired in the previous meeting of the Liaison Officers and the subsequent actions taken by the Executive Committee and OSSREA Management. She underscored the fact that all members and stakeholders of OSSREA should have the interest of OSSREA at heart. She ended her speech by expressing her expectations of fruitful discussions on activities of OSSREA chapters and wished the participants a comfortable stay at Utalii Hotel.

Following the opening speech of Prof. Katapa, an open discussion followed and the Liaison Officers raised various questions for which the members of the Executive Committee provided answers and detailed explanations. After this general discussion, the Liaison Officers held a separate session to enhance horizontal intercourse and augment experience sharing. Later another plenary session resumed the discussion based on the issues raised in the Liaison Officers’ session.

On its final day of deliberation, the summit first discussed the comprehensive country reports on 2006 activities. These reports covered the major activities carried out in 2006, activities not carried out, the reasons for not undertaking those activities, the major problems encountered during this planning period, the solutions adopted and the implications for 2007 action plan. After discussing the country reports, the summit approved the Minutes of the 2006 Meeting with some corrections and made main conclusions that emerged from the two days discussions. Following this, Prof. Katapa, President of OSSREA, made the synopsis of the issues pertaining to the way forward, which emphasized, focus on publication, enhancing transparency, consolidating governance structure of OSSREA, streamlining and systematization of the Liaison Officers-Secretariat communication and the upcoming OSSREA Evaluation. Then, Prof. Jotham Momba, OSSREA Vice President, delivered closing remarks. In his remarks, he thanked the participants for their active participation. Finally, the Liaison Officers passed a motion of unreserved support through their representative Dr De Wet Schutte expressing support for support of the Executive Committee’s endeavour in fostering a secure future for OSSREA, which everyone shares.

The first regular meeting, for the year 2007, of the OSSREA Executive Committee was held from 14th to 16th May 2007 at the Utalii Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya. At the meeting the Executive Secretary presented a report on activities of the Organisation and the committee discussed a range of policy issues.

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