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Joint-leadership and regional peacebuilding in Africa. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31920/2050-4306/2018/v7n3a1
Kiven James Kewir and Ngah Gabriel9
The role of leadership in regional peacebuilding is increasingly recognized in the literature on African security cooperation. Leadership helps both to give the impulse for integration and sustain it. It is however difficult to find countries that can single-handedly lead an organisation as big as the African Union (AU), especially on issues of high politics such as peacebuilding. This paper examines the role of leadership in peacebuilding integration in Africa. Using specific criteria for determining peacebuilding leadership in integration, it shows that there is a potential for joint-leadership by South Africa and Nigeria within the AU. Using qualitative data obtained through desktop research, the paper points out that this potential is plagued by several challenges, including differences in governance and values, which need to be addressed before this duo can effectively steer peacebuilding efforts on the continent
The article critiques Africa’s agency and potential in solving the continent’s peace and conflict challenges through the African Union (AU). Presently, Africa remains a marginal player because of insufficient economic ownership of conflict resolution and peace building and the constant intervention and interference of well-resourced non-African players. This article also appraises the AU’s elite-centric, or top-down method of ending conflict and establishing peace, intended to fulfil the ideals of Agenda 2063. While welcoming the AU principle of non- indifference in obeisance to Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the paper argues that the impulse not to chastise errant African leaderships vitiates any hope of improving the welfare of ordinary Africans. If peace initiatives are done at the level of the elite without the consent of the non-elite, the conflict will endure despite the façade at the elite level suggesting otherwise. With South Sudan as an example, the paper argues that conflict in Africa often takes undertones of identity politics and hence conflict resolution methods should take this into cognizance by forging a formula that enables amicable coexistence in countries that have diverse ethnic and racial identities.
A growing trend in Africa’s security landscape is the central role of sub-regional organizations and coalitions in addressing security threats in their respective regions. At the same time, the primary responsibility of the African Union (AU) in crises situations is increasingly vague and often focused on endorsing sub-regional decisions and supporting resource mobilization. Using the case of the South Sudan peace process led by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), this article highlights issues with the current status quo. The article argues that the overlapping mandates and unclear division of labor between the AU and sub-regions in security situations has impact on Africa’s integration agenda as well as the AU’s primacy for peace and security on the continent. Indeed, clarifying the roles of the AU and sub-regional organizations is among the pivotal issues on the AU reform process that was initiated in January 2017. To enhance African integration and maximize the capacities on the continent for sustainable peace, the reform has to strengthen the capacity of the AU to influence peace processes led by sub-regional organizations, including playing a robust role when sub-regional mechanisms are unable and/or unwilling to pursue sustainable peace
African economic integration and peacekeeping constitute respectively the largest institutionalization, and the largest operationalization, of the African Union (AU) and its sub-regional organisations. The number of African soldiers and police in AU and United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations has grown steadily. Sometimes, major strategic decisions have been mistakes which aggravated, or even catalysed conflicts that would not otherwise have occurred. The peacekeeping missions in Nigeria and Somalia are examples of these.Peacekeeping operations are in the larger scheme of things part of the on-going project of African integration. This paper identifies major problems that remain persistent after half a century of protracted Pan-Africanist endeavours at sub-regional and continental integration.
One recurrent occurrence is the chasm between aspirational treaties voluntarily signed, and their implementation, taking at best a decade or decades. Often, entities founded on paper remain dormant, until in a subsequent decade another structure is founded to operationalize the function of the previous paper entity, with this process going through several iterations.
The rise of civil wars and internecine conflict in Africa has seen millions of people fleeing the horrors of violence in their homelands to seek refuge in other countries. Refugee camps have correspondingly become a prominent feature of the African political landscape. Set up as transitory places of hope, nourishment and relief, refugee camps have turned out to be cesspools of unbridled misery and despair for refugees. In cognisance of such challenges, this paper problematises and explores the experiences of refugees in Africa (both inside and outside refugee camps). It further opines that refugee camps often defy the projections of their existence as they mutate into permanent settlements, with refugees rarely returning to their homelands. Based on secondary data collated on refugees across the African continent, this paper identifies cultural bereavement, the loss of migration networks, and protracted conflict as some of the prominent factors prolonging the duration of the refugee cycle.
The growth of the youth population in Africa, combined with crises in socio economic development, has rationalised the need for youth entrepreneurship based upon its potential contribution to the economic empowerment of those who take on the challenges of an entrepreneur. The need for youth entrepreneurship is given credence by the African Union, which offers several frameworks and programme initiatives in this regard. Signatories of the African Union are required to respond to these within their own context, as a means of making a meaningful contribution to these frameworks, through country specific policies, programmes and initiatives. This article examines the policy context for youth entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe as a driver of economic growth, and in so doing draws on both primary data, drawn from the findings of a qualitative empirical study conducted in Masvingo Province, and secondary data sources, to reflect on some of the policy implementation challenges experienced by both youth, engaging in projects, and relevant government managers.
The Lomé Declaration of 2000 aimed to consolidate democracy on the African continent by outlawing unconstitutional changes of government. With this Declaration, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) took a position to support political change that is effected through the ballot and not by any other means. By declaring unconstitutional changes of government unacceptable, anachronistic and undesirable, the OAU was creating or entrenching the norm of democratic political change. This paper argues that the African Union (AU) has not been consistent in its responses to unconstitutional changes of government in Africa. This paper uses the cases of Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe to support this position. In the case of Burkina Faso, the AU was swift in its condemnation of the coup whereas in the Zimbabwean case it was not, in fact the AU did not even declare that what took place in Zimbabwe was a coup. The paper argues that the AU must be consistent in responding to unconstitutional changes of government because if it is seen to be lenient in some cases and harsh in others, this will create instability in Africa, the instability which the Lomé Declaration and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance seek to prevent.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a region faced with a litany of security challenges that undermine its quest for peace. From its formation, collaboration in the area of peace and security was one of the aims of regional integration within SADC. In spite of the quest for peace, the region is fraught with armed revolts, social fissures and governance deficits which all combine to imperil peace and stability. Events in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Lesotho and Madagascar provide ample evidence that the region still has challenges of peace and security. The military-induced transition in Zimbabwe (2017) and the post-election violence of August 1, 2018 have left SADC’s quest for instituting an integrated security in the region under spotlight. Using qualitative document analysis, in collaboration with the security community theory, the paper argues that SADC has failed to promote peace through the institutionalisation of democratic governance. The paper scrutinised the security cooperation and integration in SADC and questions the capacity of the regional body to establish a security community. The paper sought to contribute to the ongoing discussion about regional peace and security through the institutionalisation of democracy. Developments in Zimbabwe in 2017 call for the re-examination of the role and commitment of SADC’s Organ on Politics Defence and Security Co-operation (OPDS) to the founding vision of the regional body. Thus, the paper presented compelling arguments that the commitment of SADC to the founding principles of the regional bloc especially on democratic governance are in danger of being made redundant by the unique nature of the unfolding events.
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