An Cosantóir

| 23 ly complex field of conventional munitions disposal (CMD) as ambitious. At present, South Sudan does not have the capacity to address the significant mine and ERW problems that it faces, and will face, for decades to come. Therefore, the challenge for the international community in partnership with the government of South Sudan is to develop an effective national capability in this field. UNMAS is mandated to develop this capacity with the intention of gradually transferring the responsibility to the host nation. To this end, UNMAS intends to train the police in CMD and the army in demining (due to commence in 2014). The composition and disposition of the South Sudan National Police Service (SSNPS) lends itself to undertaking the mobile and spot task CMD function on a nationwide scale. By contrast, the robust structure of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) sees it better suited to engaging in the labour intensive, logistically heavy and systematic business of humanitarian demining. Rambo Isaac (an UNMAS staff member and CMD operator who is also South Sudanese and acts as a translator when needed) succinctly captures the relationship between these separate but complementary functions: "The idea is that army humanitarian demining teams and police CMD teams will complement each other operationally. They are just different tools in the toolbox that hopes to fix the mine and ERW problem here in South Sudan." The Defence Forces team currently in-theatre is already playing a key role in one of these streams, the pilot scheme to train police CMD operators. Any capacity development initiative should cross the 'start line' with an understanding of what the 'finish line' should look like, even if the route in between proves to be an elliptical one. That is to say, there should be a clear vision of what the desired end-state is before taking the first step in the process. With regards to the police CMD training initiative, the desired end-state is the establishment of a selfsustainable, nationwide SSNPS CMD capability. To achieve this there is a requirement to train enough police CMD teams to deploy to all 10 states in South Sudan. Although this will take a number of years, the successful completion of the pilot course represents a positive first step in realising this goal and gives cause for guarded optimism. The DF-led, eight-week, pilot course ran from September to November and was based out of the National Police Training Centre in Rajaf, near the nation's capital, Juba. As might be expected of a first course it was a learning experience for both students and staff alike. Importantly, those lessoned identified (be they administrative, logistic or training related) were incorporated into a 'lessons learned' process in order to improve the training package for future courses. Furthermore, only by maintaining this continuous cycle of course review and refinement can the training evolve and remain fit for purpose. In conducting a course of this nature, staff need to retain a flexible and responsive approach to the instruction. How we teach is often as important as what we teach when it comes to the students assimilating the material. All lectures, lesson plans and tutorials were reconstructed by the Irish team with this in mind: the objective being that the training framework should be environment specific and tailored to meet the anticipated tasks that the teams would face when operationally deployed. Effectively balancing the pace of instruction and navigating language barriers is essential in the delivery of this technically difficult course. Rambo Isaac says: "We are all (staff and students) learning every day on this course in our own different ways. This is a dangerous job that the students are being trained to do and it is very important that the students and staff communicate well. The students must feel comfortable at all times to speak up if they don't understand something. This is a two-way process." Graduation day in November for the first CMD course was met with a palpable sense of purpose and pride amongst the class. Twenty out of the initial twenty-five students qualified as CMD operators, enabling the operational deployment of three teams to their respective home states. The future support of the SSNPS is critical to the overall success of the project, and the training of CMD teams is only the first step in this process. It is imperative that the capacity being developed is clearly understood by the police service if it is to be resourced and tasked appropriately. Real sustainability will require the police to take full ownership of this project in the years to come; and with that ownership comes a responsibility to meet the many challenges that will indubitably present themselves. Colonel Deng, SSNPS point-ofcontact for the initiative, expressed the view of the police: "We are ready for this and greatly welcome the Irish teaching the police in CMD. We look forward to learning these skills and being responsible for conducting this training ourselves in a few years." OCHA, Humanitarian Achievements in South Sudan (as of 31 Dec 2012). 2 Young, John. The Fate of Sudan (London, 2012.) 3 OCHA, 2012 Humanitarian Achievements in South Sudan (as of 31 Dec 2012.) 1 DF training team briefing students on the demolitions range. Deputy Minister for the Interior presenting students with scrolls on graduation day. www.military.ie the defence forces magazine

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