The Role of Staff Colleges in preparing Officers to meet Emerging Security Challenges

This report documents the 6th African Conference of Commandants (ACoC), held in November 2012 in Abuja, Nigeria. The conference focused on the role of staff colleges in preparing military officers to address emerging security challenges in Africa, emphasizing the need for a balance between academic education, professional military studies, and tactical training to develop flexible, intellectual leaders.

• African countries face a diverse array of emerging security threats that require a recalibration of military leadership competencies. These include maritime issues such as piracy and illegal fishing, transnational organised crime, human and drug trafficking, resource-driven conflicts, cyber crime and warfare, and climate change.
• Professional Military Education (PME) must adopt a holistic approach that balances three distinct domains of learning: academic education (the 'why' to develop critical thinking), military training (the 'how' to impart specific operational skills), and professional development (the 'how and why' relating to the profession of arms).
• The ACoC identifies a need for the harmonisation of curricula across African staff colleges to improve professional standards and interoperability. This includes developing a unified curriculum for African Standby Force (ASF) responses to 'Operations Other Than War'.
• There is a strategic imperative to shift from state-centric to human-centred approaches when addressing emerging security challenges, and to integrate gender mainstreaming into military curricula to address societal and military discrimination.
• The conference emphasizes that military leaders must be trained to think both 'inside and outside the box', combining predictive capabilities with creativity to derive solutions from a complex security landscape.
• The ACoC proposes expanding its membership and cooperation to include higher-level military colleges in Africa, specifically those in Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Cameroon, and Nigeria, to support lifetime career development for officers.
• The SADC Combined Joint African Exercise (CJAX) 2012, hosted by Zambia and sponsored by the British Peace Support Team South Africa, aimed to train officers in joint, multinational, and interagency environments using AU ASF doctrine.

APA

Potgieter, J., Oder, S. A., & Ndungu, I. (2013). The Role of Staff Colleges in preparing Officers to meet Emerging Security Challenges. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ACoC6thAnnualConf.pdf

Chicago

Potgieter, Johan, Sandra Adong Oder, and Irene Ndungu. The Role of Staff Colleges in preparing Officers to meet Emerging Security Challenges. Institute for Security Studies, 2013. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ACoC6thAnnualConf.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Potgieter |first1=Johan |last2=Oder |first2=Sandra Adong |last3=Ndungu |first3=Irene |title=The Role of Staff Colleges in preparing Officers to meet Emerging Security Challenges |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=2013 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ACoC6thAnnualConf.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{potgieter2013role, author = {Potgieter, Johan and Oder, Sandra Adong and Ndungu, Irene}, title = {{The Role of Staff Colleges in preparing Officers to meet Emerging Security Challenges}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2013}, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ACoC6thAnnualConf.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }