UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Economic Community of West African States are organising a 6-day Emergency Management Training (EMT) for ECOWAS staff and members of the ECOWAS Emergency Response Team (EERT) in ECOWAS Member States.

Participants will be trained with skills that will enable them to better provide timely, quality and effective humanitarian intervention in times of crises in the ECOWAS region, according to a statement from UNHCR's spokesman, Francis Garriba.

He said the training will hold from 26 to 31 August, 2018 at the Martin Luther Agwai Leadership and Peacekeeping Centre in Jaji, Kaduna State, Nigeria, and will involve 35 participants.

"The training is organised within the framework of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2001 between UNHCR and the ECOWAS Commission to work closely together, especially in the area of capacity building.

"The main objective of the training is to build and improve the capacity of ECOWAS and EERT members to effectively deliver humanitarian assistance in the region, especially given the frequency of forced displacements or refugee movements in such instances", the statement said.

Dr Siga Fatima Jagne, Commissioner, Social Affairs and Gender, ECOWAS; Ambassador Babatunde Nurudeen, Nigeria Permanent Representative to ECOWAS; Roger Hollo, Senior Liaison Officer, UNHCR; and Major General US Yakubu, Commandant, Martin Luther Agwai Leadership and Peacekeeping Centre, will give the opening remarks.