Mr. William Ofori-Boafo, Deputy Minister of Defence on Friday reaffirmed government's commitments to deal with all the conflicts and crisis situations in the country. He said joint training programmes among the various security agencies were to create a proper understanding and develop a common operating procedure that would help minimize the effects of disasters. Mr Ofori-Boafo was speaking at the closing ceremony of 2007 Conflict and Crisis Management Course at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College at Teshie, near Accra. The three-week course dealt with issues on conflict and crisis management, changing demographic situations and sub-regional integration to take care of the challenges of the global security environment. The course, sponsored by the British government, also attracted participants from the office of the President, Ministry of National Security, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Local Government and Environment and the Ghana Health Service. The rest are the National Disaster Management Organisation, University of Ghana, Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Police Service, Ghana Fire Service and the Bureau of National Investigations. Mr Ofori-Boafo said the effects of conflicts and crisis on even highly industrialised countries showed that effective response to such situations was very important even if sophisticated equipment were required to deal with such problems. He urged the participants not to be complacent as far as conflicts and crisis were concerned but rather use the knowledge that they had acquired to train personnel at their workplace on how to minimise disasters in their area of operation. "It is now up to you to apply the knowledge you acquired here to help manage conflicts and crisis," he added. Major General Richardson Baidden, Commandant of the GAFCSC said the military high command would continue to collaborate with the other security agencies to enhance the capacity of its personnel. He said the college took pride in providing a conducive atmosphere for such courses to sister organisations to help build their human resource capacities. Source: GNA