The U.S Africa Command is partnering with West African military to build spiritual resilience and cross-border cooperation among military chaplains, with senior AFRICOM religious leaders saying that faith was a center of gravity for regional stability.
Speaking during a digital press briefing with African journalists, Chaplain Colonel Kevin Forrester, Command Chaplain at U.S Africa Command, and Sergeant Major Herinah Asaah, AFRICOM’s Senior Religious Affairs Enlisted Leader, said AFRICOM through the West Africa Religious Affairs Symposium, WARAS, aimed to build bridges, and establish a shared framework of trust and interoperability across West Africa.
The symposium, co-hosted with the Ghanaian Armed Forces, brought together military religious leaders from 10 West African nations, including Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Ghana among others and U.S State Partnership Programme chaplains from the Army and Air National Guard.
Other participating nations at the Symposium which held between July 14 – 16, are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Gambia and Liberia.
Col. Forrester, in his opening remarks, said the timing of WARAS was critical given that partner forces operate in increasingly complex, high-stress security environments that impact the region.
“Across Africa, there is not a single country where religion is not a significant factor influencing the people and the culture. In the military, we call this a center of gravity. “Regional stability and prosperity requires institutional strength, ethical practice, and the moral foundation that religious traditions provide.
“This symposium simply brings these religious leaders together to broaden their cooperation and commitment to use religion as a unifying force for peace and stability,” he said.
“Stability in this region is going to require all the nations working together, and this only reinforces that we can do it militarily, we can do it culturally, we can do it economically, and we can do it spiritually – and that’s the huge win,” Forrester added.
He stressed that the symposium was pluralism in action and not about imposing a U.S model.
“When you see a Muslim chaplain and a Catholic priest collaborating side by side to support a unit, that isn’t just religious tolerance, it’s operational strength,” Forrester said. “By bringing these religious leaders together, we are building bridges where others cannot, establishing a shared framework of trust and interoperability across West Africa.”
Fielding questions from journalists, Sgt. Maj. Asaah, who was born in Cameroon, said the enlisted side of chaplaincy was focused on translating strategy into boots-on-the-ground support.
“Our job is to ensure the high-level framework we develop here actually reaches and protects the youngest service member and their families in the formation,” she said.
Asaah identified the biggest challenge as providing continuous care to small, dispersed and remote teams across AFRICOM’s vast area of responsibility. She said chaplaincies were adapting by moving beyond reactive, desk-bound roles to an “active, mobile presence in both physical and digital spaces,” including using apps and social media to reach younger troops facing misinformation and prolonged deployments.
“We all agreed that meeting our service members where they are is the modern chaplain’s ultimate best practice,” she said.
When asked about concrete results, Col. Forrester said the fact that 10 nations with different languages gathered for the first time around religious support was itself a tremendous win.
The long-term goal, he said, was increased cooperation that enhances the well-being of each nation’s chaplaincy and helped formations “broadly and holistically meet the needs” of troops.
Sgt. Maj. Asaah added that many participating chaplaincies were emerging and less than 20 years old. For them, networking with peers is critical.
“If I find a friend in another country when I can’t find one anywhere near me in my own country, that’s immensely valuable,” Forrester said.
The chaplains also highlighted ethics and moral leadership as core to their role, advising commanders both internally on troop welfare and externally on religious sensitivities during operations.
