Cairo, Egypt – CCCPA hosted the signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement with the Government of Switzerland and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on “Enhancing Peace, Security and Stability in Africa”. 
 
The ceremony was attended by H.E. Paul Garnier, Ambassador of Switzerland to Egypt; Ms. Randa Aboul-Hosn, UNDP Resident Representative; and CCCPA Director General Ashraf Swelam. Also, in attendance was Ms. 
Corinne Henchoz Pignani, Head of the Office for International Cooperation of the Swiss Embassy in Egypt.
 
In line with the priorities of the Egyptian Chairmanship of the African Union (AU) and those of the Swiss 2017-2020 Cooperation Strategy for Egypt, the project contributes to building African capacities for combating human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. This is of utmost importance since Africa has been facing an unprecedented increase in the scale and complexity of forced migration, refugee flows, internal displacement and human trafficking in recent years. The Egyptian-Swiss cooperation will also contribute to mainstreaming migration into development policies and enhancing capacities for developing national and regional strategies and instruments to combat human trafficking and smuggling of migrants. 
 
CCCPA Director General Ashraf Swelam expressed the Center’s gratitude and appreciation of efforts by the Government of Switzerland for contributing to addressing peace and security challenges in Africa. “This collaboration is timely due to the scale and complexity of migration in Africa. It also comes at a time when the AU announced 2019 as the Year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced People.” 
 
During the signing ceremony, Ambassador Paul Garnier reaffirmed that “Switzerland welcomes this joint initiative with CCCPA and UNDP on addressing the challenges of migration within the framework of our talks and cooperation program with the Government of Egypt. Fighting against human trafficking and smuggling of migrants is a priority for Switzerland and is a central issue in the region. This cooperation is very likely to increase given the essential role played by Egypt, which stands at the crossroads of migratory routes through the African continent to the Mediterranean Sea.”
 
In her remarks, Ms. Randa Aboul-Hosn congratulated the Government of Switzerland and CCCPA on the new collaboration and confirmed UNDP’s commitment to continue to expand this successful cooperation.  She emphasized that “the work of the Center is solid and relevant to issues of the region and Egypt.” On another note, she commended CCCPA’s work as “an excellent best practice, and many organizations want to follow suit and go international.” 
CCCPA is an AU Center of Excellence in training, capacity building, and research, under the suzerainty of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.