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The Administration developed the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) as a multilateral, five-year program with U.S. contributions of some $660 million from FY05 through FY09. Its primary purpose is to train and equip 75,000 military troops, a majority of them African, for peacekeeping operations by 2010. GPOI is supporting an Italian training center for gendarme (constabulary police) forces in Vicenza, Italy, scheduled to open in the fall of 2005. GPOI will also promote the development of an international transportation and logistics support system for peacekeepers, and is encouraging an information exchange to improve international coordination of peace operations training and exercises in Africa. In June 2004, G8 leaders pledged to support the goals of the initiative. GPOI incorporates previous capabilities-building programs. From FY1997-FY2005, the United States spent just over $121 million on GPOI's predecessor program that was funded through the State Department Peacekeeping (PKO) account (the Clinton Administration's African Crisis Response Initiative, i.e., ACRI and its successor, the Bush Administrations's African Crisis Operations Training i.e., ACOTA). Through ACRI/ACOTA, the United States trained some 16,000 troops (and is currently training another 1,000) from nine African nations- Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique and Senegal. Another $33 million was provided from FY1998-FY2005 to support classroom training of 31 foreign militaries through the Foreign Military Financing account's Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities program (EIPC). In its last days, the 108th Cong. appropriated just over $100 million in FY05 funding the GPOI programs. The bulk of this funding was contained in Section 117 of Division J("Other Matters") of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY05 (H.R. 4818/P.L.108-447). This section provided authority for transfer of up to $80 mil. from DoD to the State Dept. PKO account.
