About

European Union’s Civilian Training Initiative (EUCTI) is a three year project, funded by the European Union in the scope of Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI.2), instrument contributing to Stability and Peace, Conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and crisis preparedness component. EUCTI aims to improve the life of people living in the conflict affected societies by enhancing the quality of training provided to those individuals joining the crisis management missions – either CCM missions or civilian elements of the integrated missions.

Through the designed training activities, the EUCTI aims at enhancing the abilities of the deployed civilian staff in EU CSDP, OSCE, UN, AU and possibly other crisis management missions to work in an efficient, effective and sustainable manner to implement their respective missions’ mandates. Thus, EUCTI contributes in enhancing human security in the conflict prone regions.

The project will result in:

The overall objective of the project is to improve the EU position as a peace actor.

Final beneficiaries

There are at least two main final beneficiaries that will benefit from well-trained civilian experts working in the civilian crisis management missions: host countries of the civilian crisis management missions and training institutions that are not EUCTI consortium partners.
Countries that are hosting civilian crisis management missions have great hopes for the work of the missions in fulfilling their mandate. Mission’s mandate is formed in close cooperation with host society, giving the mission credibility to operate in foreign country. With daily mission’s efforts towards the mandate, the environment of the host country is changing – not only through the national personnel working in the mission, but also through mission’s activities on the ground, felt and seen by local people. All EUCTI training activities are open for all mission’s members, foreign and local, which increases capacities of the local population, even after leaving the mission. Furthermore, all training activities are taking into account aspects such as local ownership and an active involvement in host countries’ societies. Training institutions that are not partners of the EUCTI project will have free access to all products and deliverables of the projects. All lessons learned and best practices will be globally available, shared at international workshops and events. Direct impact will have on training centres that will be requesting closer cooperation through technical advice, assistance and expertise on training activities. These workshops will trigger the transfer of knowledge and expertise, the exchange of good practices and lessons learned.
Last, but not least, also sending states, will benefit from experts trained for contemporary challenges in the civilian crisis management. EU Member States and other contributors to civilian missions who have the duty to ensure that seconded staff has been adequately trained and is enabled to perform, benefit from additional, standardised high-quality training for their staff. They also benefit from peer-to-peer discussions within the consortium on best practices and latest developments.

The EU has deployed 22 missions over the last 15 years. 11 civilian CSDP missions are currently ongoing and an estimated 5,000 staff serve both the civilian as well as the ongoing seven military missions, roughly 2000 in civilian missions. In addition, EU Member states deploy a high number of staff to the ongoing missions of the OSCE and the UN. In 2018, a concept paper on strengthening civilian Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), a Civilian Capability Development Plan (CCDP) and the civilian CSDP Compact were adopted highlighting the EU’s determination to take a qualitative and quantitative leap forward in civilian CSDP. Training is mentioned as the most important cross-cutting instrument to be developed regarding global capability development. An EU Civilian Training Group (EU CTG), at the Council level, is tasked to enhance cooperation and synergies in training at EU level seizing opportunities offered by the recognized training providers in coherence and continuity with relevant EU instruments.

Successful civilian crisis management and stabilization missions rely on the availability of well- prepared individuals which in turn depends on highly qualified training activities designed for such purpose. While within the EU the Member States have the lead role in training personnel for participation in civilian crisis management missions, the European Commission has to date provided significant financial complementary support for training efforts. Since 2001, EU support has financed training activities for civilian crisis management and stabilization missions, including the sharing of professional expertise among training actors, elaboration of standard curricula and establishment of training certification procedures.

There is a continued need for well-prepared individuals for CSDP missions. However, while the EU Policy on Training for CSDP stipulates that appropriate training is a mandatory prerequisite of deployment and despite the existence of numerous training providers, there is still deployment of staff who have not participated in basic or pre-deployment training. This was confirmed with results of the H2020 research project Improving the Effectiveness of Capabilities in EU Conflict Prevention (IECEU) which concluded that lack of appropriately trained staff is hindering the effectiveness of the EU missions, since the staff rotates frequently and they are not equipped with proper knowledge to fulfil their obligations in the missions. Due to the constant rotation of the deployed staff, the training needs to be organized and regularly repeated in a standardized coordinated manner. Based on the recommendations, will be the EU Civilian Training Initiative (EUCTI) training activities additionally adjusted in dialogue with relevant stakeholders to reflect the identified needs and changes within CCM operations. This will play a major role in enabling EU missions to work with professionals with necessary skills and knowledge.

Moreover, staff members have different levels of knowledge and awareness about the EU and its standards, including on human rights, ethics and gender issues. In addition, while competence in a certain professional field is essential for mission staff, mentoring and advising techniques to facilitate the transfer of expertise to counterparts in civilian crisis management is equally important. There are however different approaches to such training and capacity-building based on respective national traditions. Such diversity of national approaches is a strength of the EU but may be confusing for beneficiaries in the absence of appropriate information and coordination. The EU Policy on Training for CSDP stresses that a system for harmonization and mutual recognition is important to improve the coherence, compatibility and complementarity of training activities for CSDP, both civilian and military. The EUCTG will contribute to information exchange among stakeholders in training field, which will support EUCTI’s promotion of quality standards and harmonization of approaches at EU level. The EUCTI will build on nine years of experience of some of the most specialized trainers in the sector as well as the promotion of European training standards. Programme ENTRi (Europe’s New Training Initiative for Civilian Crisis Management)1 initiated in early 2011 under the 2010 Annual Action Programme of the Instrument for Stability focused on the preparation and training of civilians, from EU Member States and third countries, who are either going to, or already working in, crisis management missions worldwide. Such missions include those of the European Union (EU), United Nations (UN), Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the African Union (AU). EUCTI will build on the ENTRi findings and results, while focusing on in-mission and in-country training (while were ENTRi training activities implemented mostly in the member states) and specific topics (not on basic courses).