Training to prevent conflict: a relevant approach?

It should also be noted that national schools with a regional vocation, by training the personnel of the armed forces of the beneficiary countries, participate in the integration process underway in this regional community. There is no longer any doubt that successful regional integration brings with it regional stability and therefore reduces the risk of conflict. The objective of economic integration pursued by ECOWAS is illustrative proof of this. But it should be noted that security is a prerequisite for economic integration. Since regional integration concerns not only the States but also the populations, the coordinator of the ECOWAS community development programme affirms that "it is a question of winning the support and effective participation of the populations in the integration process". Better still, Joseph Ki-Zerbo maintains that "the objective of development is to give people the minimum necessary so that they do not starve and fall into poverty, thus becoming useless to themselves and to the community". Only development understood in this way can extricate the region from its distant conflicts.