Understand conflicts actions to resolve them before initiating – Prof. Marfo

A professor of Peace and Conflict Resolution at the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and In­tegrated Development (SDD-UBIDS), Professor Samuel Marfo, has under­scored the need for conflict media­tors to properly understand conflicts before initiating any actions to resolve them.

According to Prof. Marfo, who is also a Member of the Upper West Regional Peace Council, any wrong understanding of conflict would lead to the initiation of wrong actions that would escalate the conflict situation rather than resolving it.

Prof. Marfo was facilitating a com­munity sensitisation programme at Kunchogu in the Sissala East Mu­nicipality of the Upper West Region titled the “Atlantic Corridor Project: Promoting community Dialogues and Community Peace Committees to Strengthen Social Cohesion and Reduce Vulnerabilities to Violent Extremism”.

The project is being sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations De­velopment Programme (UNDP) and implemented by the National Peace Council.

The Prof. of Peace and Conflict Resolution said to properly under­stand a conflict, one must learn to see or view the situation from different angles and lenses.

“Different people observe things differently and that is why we have conflicts which is normal, but the fact that we see things differently does not make us enemies,” he said.

“We may disagree but no matter our differences, if we really want peace, we can learn to view the issue from each other’s view point and can resolve our differences and that makes us human regardless of our diversity,” he added.

Prof. Marfo noted that diversity was not the problem but how we react to differences was rather the problem, and urged the people to try and over­come that to promote social cohesion.

The Executive Secretary of the Upper West Regional Peace Council, Mr Emmanuel Danyomah, urged the people to use the knowledge they ac­quired during the training to help build a peaceful community.

Pio Haruna Osman Awedaga, the Chief of Kunchogu, expressed gratitude to the Peace Council and its partners for bringing together all the communities in the area, saying it had been long they came together because of their differences.

 FROM RAFIA ABDUL

RAZAK WA