The Rwanda Peace Academy in Nyakinama, Musanze district, today starts a two week’s course on Security Sector Reform (SSR).

The course, jointly organised by the Academy, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and the UN Mission in the South Sudan - Integrated Mission Training Centre (UNMISS - IMTC), targets 20 UNMISS employees.

It is aimed at enhancing the capacity of the South Sudanese staff working with UNMISS.

Col. Jill Rutaremara, the Academy’s Director told The New Times yesterday that the overall objective is to discuss the potential role of practitioners of a national security sector reform process, apply soft skills required to engage in SSR, and identify key lessons from practical SSR experience.

Col. Rutaremara said: "Unlike what many people think, the security sector is something really broad. There are aspects of transitional justice, defense reform, issues such as the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) and much more.”

Col. Rutaremara explained that countries with post conflict situations have to look at pertinent institutions and work on how they can be re-organised to make them perform better.

"The participants will thus be actors from different components of the security sector.”

Early last year, the Academy hosted a similar course, for nine regional countries – Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda, organized with support of the Geneva based International Security Sector Reform Advisory Team- ISSAT.