171.

Welcomes the fact that the EU considers peace and security in Africa as a key condition for sustainable development and that the Union is committed to ‘markedly step up its support to Africa in cooperation with the international community’; shares the opinion that the matter of security in Africa is of great importance for the development of the continent supported by regional and international organisations, while African states are the foremost guarantors of their own security; calls for the EU, therefore, to continue its efforts to work in cooperation with its African partners in the further development of an African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), to achieve long-term peace and stability and overcome the crises and conflicts on that continent through an integrated approach that harnesses all available tools, including support for developing African security and defence capabilities and its military operations, civilian missions, peacebuilding and demilitarisation projects with respect for international human rights and humanitarian law and the independence and sovereignty of African countries, and support for initiatives coming from the AU, regional organisations such as ECOWAS and the G5 Sahel; encourages the Member States to participate in EU missions and operations and welcomes bilateral efforts contributing to peace and stability and urges the Council, in this respect, to swiftly approve the European Peace Facility in order to provide more comprehensive assistance to African partners in regions affected by conflict; emphasises the importance of multilateral cooperation within the AU-EU-UN triangle in the field of local, regional and international security and the role of civil society actors in peacekeeping and peace-building efforts; recalls in this light that security sector reform, justice reform, good governance, democratic accountability and the protection of civilians are prerequisite for winning the trust of populations in their governments and security forces; underlines, furthermore, the civil-military nexus and the need to better streamline both components of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions; supports the increasingly proactive approach taken by cooperative regional security organisations towards the full operationalisation of the APSA, which provides the African Union and regional level organisations with the needed tools to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts; commends, in particular, initiatives such as G5 Sahel, given its increasingly pivotal role in decisive action taken by African nations to ensure peace and security in their own neighbourhood and calls on the Commission and Member States to increase political, financial, operational and logistical support to G5 Sahel; stresses that, in order to ensure appropriate levels of security and development, African countries must have adequate capacities in all essential sectors, most importantly regarding security and defence; calls for the EU to coordinate the development and security initiatives in which it is involved on the African continent as part of an integrated strategy that includes good governance, democracy, human rights, the rule of law and gender equality, with a particular focus on regions where vulnerabilities and tensions are the highest; welcomes the cooperation undertaken between the EU and Africa in combating terrorism and armed groups, in compliance with international law; calls, in the context of counter-terrorism policies, for the establishment of more transparent decision-making processes, increased compliance with a human rights-based approach and more engagement with communities affected by these measures;