Peace is a comprehensive and holistic exercise. Meeting the demands of the African people for peace and security requires addressing a wide range of challenges, including democracy, inclusion, peacemaking and peacekeeping, as well as the longer-term challenges that are posed by climate change.
The key concepts behind international discourse on peace and security originated in Africa, among Africans. The concept of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ was, for instance, born in this continent. The ‘responsibility to protect’ was also first used in the report of the Organisation of African Unity’s (OAU) International Panel of Eminent Personalities on Rwanda in 2000.
Furthermore, the rejection of unconstitutional changes in government as a threat to peace and security arose in Africa. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) even goes far beyond its Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) counterpart in addressing domestic governance issues.
The framework of ‘security sector reform’ to promote a democratic and accountable military and police, its character and conduct reflecting society at large, were generated in southern Africa with the end of racist rule. And of course the very framework of collective security and the primacy of the international rule of law owe much to Emperor Haileselassie’s famous speech to the League of Nations in 1936.
As we face the challenge of ‘silencing the guns’ by 2020, we must reflect on these legacies and examine how better to apply the norms that we ourselves have fashioned.
How are these principles to be applied more consistently? How are our norms to be upgraded for the challenges we face today? How are these instruments to be utilized in the current context? How can we make our domestic security governance more accountable to our citizens? How could the APRM be revitalized as a tool for preventative diplomacy and conflict mitigation?
Certainly, national constitutions are a national prerogative, and deepening democracy is a domestic task. But African experience shows that each country is profoundly affected by its neighbours, and that domestic political crises often have regional ramifications. Regional peace and security strategies are therefore of great significance.
In its Constitutive Act and in the procedures of the Peace & Security Council (PSC), the African Union (AU) treats unconstitutional changes in government as a threat to regional peace and security. In the coming year, the debate on what constitutes a legitimate constitutional change, and how to manage competing demands of constitutional propriety, democratic openness, stability and other political goals, will need to be conducted in an open and creative manner.
It does not end there, though. A disturbing number of locations across Africa, communities and governments are faced with violent extremism, often associated with religious fundamentalism. Fortunately, this remains a minority phenomenon. Also, many countries, faced with the same factors that have led to virulent extremism in a neighbouring state, have escaped the threat.
While recognising that the ‘war on terror’ has generally proven counterproductive, Africa has yet to develop its own transnational strategies for countering violent extremism, drawing on its own experiences. The high-level mediators’ retreat in Windhoek, on mediation and terrorism, was an important step towards formulating such an approach.
True, Africa is a strategic beneficiary of multilateralism. On the global stage our countries are small and vulnerable, and we need the protection of international law to survive and the stage of multilateral organisations to be heard.
Fundamentally, the AU, the Regional Economic comunities (RECs) and the United Nations must be strategic partners – they will rise together or fall together. But much work needs to be done to design those elements of the African peace and security architecture that require collaboration between the AU, the RECs and the UN.
Chapter VIII of the UN Charter “provides the constitutional basis for the involvement of regional organisations in the maintenance of international peace and security for which the Security Council is primarily responsible.” This means that the AU and RECs are covered by international law. But the AU also has its own legal authority deriving from its Constitutive Act. Some of the provisions in that Constitutive Act, were included precisely because of the failures of the UN (for instance, over the prevention of genocide in Rwanda) or the absence of the required provisions in the AU Charter (such as, over banning unconstitutional changes in government). For these reasons, it is imperative that the UN treats the AU as a full partner, not an implementing subsidiary.
The AU PSC is the premier peace and security organ on the continent. The AU has a Memorandum of Understanding with the RECs on peace and security issues. The heart of the relationship consists of subsidiarity and collaboration. Therefore, the RECs are commonly first responders and in all cases must be closely engaged in dialogue and consultation. But within Africa, it is important that the RECs respect the primacy of the AU PSC: once its decisions are taken, they should be honoured by all.
But doing this is easier said than done. The challenge for 2016, then, is to ensure that these elements of the peace and security architecture work smoothly and in harmony.
Africa is the location of 80pc of the world’s peacekeepers, and African countries are increasingly the leading troop contributors to not only AU but also UN peace operations. These are overwhelmingly funded from outside the continent. The growth of African involvement in peace operations is clearly to be welcomed.
The challenge is to ensure that this does not result in an unhealthy dependence on external donors, who will want to set the agenda in return for paying the bills. As African peacekeeping troop contributions continue to increase, African leaders will need to reflect on the political costs of accepting external payments. The alternatives are either much greater intra-Africa cooperation in providing troops, equipment and funds for peace operations, or designing peace missions that are far less costly.
Some of Africa’s most intractable conflicts occur at the intersection of Africa and the Arab world. In countries such as Libya and Somalia, Arab nations also have a deep interest in resolving deeply threatening political crises. But their political stakes, their norms and their practices of conflict resolution are often different to those of the AU.
African conflict resolution strategies have proven remarkably effective over the last twenty years, but the AU too often finds itself playing second fiddle to Arab countries.
How, then, is Africa going to assert the relevance and validity of its experience and norms, in these conflicts?
Africa’s recent economic growth has been led principally by primary commodity exports, Asian investment, and the service sector (exceptions include Ethiopia and Rwanda). Given that African countries have small, open economies, integrated with the global economy, that recent growth is now highly vulnerable.
Sustainable and equitable development rests on producing value, which in turn requires the stable, long-term developmental trajectory that can only be provided by an activist state. The key question here is: what lessons are to be learned and applied from those countries that are achieving the kinds of sustainable growth that the continent as a whole needs?
Related to this is the climate change factor. Climate change is one of the strategic challenges facing the African continent over the coming generation. Africa has been only a very minor contributor to global warming but is likely to become a major victim, with slower economic growth, and major climatic disruptions, such as those evident at the moment, with the El Niño effect. African economies and livelihoods – especially agriculture – will be compelled to adjust.
Africa has taken a lead in promoting concepts of ‘green economies’ and in pressing for developing countries to receive an equitable share of global resources devoted to adaptation. But the greater burden of resilience will fall on the African people and governments.
Experience shows that while natural resources such as water and land can contribute to local conflict among communities, and between indigenous users and state authorities, these resources are rarely a cause of inter-state conflict. Indeed, mechanisms for water sharing in trans-boundary rivers are a contributor to cooperation more than conflict. The mechanisms for such cooperation need to be strengthened, and the model of cooperation on shared river basins needs to be extended to other natural resources. But having a clear roadmap on how we should proceed in this direction needs to be addressed.
The AU has designated 2016 as the year of human rights, and Rwanda is in the chair. The Kigali summit will take place during the period of commemoration of the 1994 genocide. Africa’s key institutions and norms have all been designed to fight and overcome the legacies of past injustices and atrocities, from colonialism, slavery and racism to genocide and coups d’état.
Hence, reflecting on Africa’s bitter experiences, and how those have shaped the continent and indeed the AU itself, is a step towards recognising the directions in which the AU needs to go in future.
How should such a conversation be shaped? How should it intersect with the demands of day-to-day policymaking?
A holistic exercise to peace needs to provide redress for all these. Therein lies the challenge of Africa for this year.
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