Abuja, 24^th November 2017. Members of the Economic Community of West African States Standby Force (ESF) have developed key documents which will be used to assess ECOWAS decision making process for mandating a Peace Support Operation (PSO) within the context of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in its upcoming Command Post Exercise (CPX) –JIGUI IV.

During a four day Political Strategic retreat which concluded on 23^rd November 2017 in Abuja, Nigeria, participants developed the Strategic Assessment, the ECOWAS President’s Strategic Planning Directive and the Mandate for the deployment of the ECOWAS mission in its simulated CARANA scenario for the CPX.

In order to achieve this, a Conflict Management Task Force (CMTF) comprising of key Directorates of the ECOWAS Commission was constituted during the retreat.

They developed the Strategic Assessment of the CARANA scenario which takes into account the strategic objective for a Peace Support Operation as well as a range of alternative strategies and options for the scenario.

The Strategic Directive which will emanate from the office of the ECOWAS President, provides the scope of the PSO, a clear direction about the institutions approach to handling an intervention as well as the directive to initiate a detailed operational plan for the mission.

Also, the Mandate for the deployment of the ECOWAS Mission in CARANA (EMICA) will be issued through a Communiqué by the Mediation and Security Council (MSC) and will include the legal framework, the approval of funds and the deployment of the PSO mission.

The CPX JIGUI IV is the fourth Command Post Exercise to be conducted by ECOWAS and is scheduled to hold in July 2018.

Its overall object is to test the capability of the ESF to conduct strategic and operational level planning for multidimensional operations and to exercise Command and Control of deployed forces on a simulated ECOWAS/ African Union mandated PSO.