African leaders are expected to agree a $225 million security package this week aimed at preventing further bloodshed in the continent's violent and impoverished Great Lakes region, officials said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. Up to 11 heads of state are due to sign the pact at a U.N.-backed summit in Kenya, spelling out five-year action plans under a regional cooperation deal that was launched in 2004. Top of the agenda is a peace and security programme for the Great Lakes, which includes Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and has been torn by wars and counter-wars for more than a decade. A draft of the plan seen by Reuters allocated more than $200 million to disarming a host of rebel groups in eastern Congo and pastoralists in northern Uganda, northern Kenya and south Sudan, as well as boosting border security and de-mining. Another $22 million will be spent on tackling rampant illegal arms trafficking, cross-border crime and terrorism. "Every country here has its own needs, but they are all looking for stability... This provides a framework to avoid what happened in the past: skirmishes in border regions that led to all-out war," said U.N. spokesman George Ola-Davis. "These are all realisable, tangible projects, they are not just going to be massive white elephants."
