PREVIEW: Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in a Time of Change by Centre for International Governance Innovation

Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in a Time of Change takes on these questions, bringing together more than 20 experts to examine the source of conflicts in Africa and assess African management capacity in the face of these conflicts. Through this book, they explore the viability of “African solutions for African problems,” the gaps in resources and capacity, the role of international players in African-led peacekeeping operations, and the tensions that erupt when there are overlapping mandates among subregional, regional and international institutions charged with bringing peace to troubled places. The book focuses on the role of mediation and peacekeeping in managing violence and political crises, looking at new ideas and institutions emerging in the African space, as well as at the structural and institutional obstacles to developing a truly robust conflict management capability in Africa. In the end, the stakes are too high in terms of human lives and regional stability to allow these obstacles to paralyze peace processes. This team of authors, approaching the issues from a wide range of perspectives, recognizes the enormity of the stakes and offers concrete recommendations on how to end conflict and lay the groundwork for building peace in Africa.

ABOUT THE EDITORS PAMELA AALL is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), in the Global Security & Politics Program, leading the African Regional Conflict Management project. She is also a senior adviser for conflict prevention and management at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), where she was founding provost of the USIP’s Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. She is on the advisory council of the European Institute of Peace, and serves on the boards of Women In International Security and the International Peace and Security Institute. CHESTER A. CROCKER is a distinguished fellow at CIGI. He is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and serves on the board of its Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. A former assistant secretary of state for African affairs (1981–1989), he served as chairman of the board of the USIP (1992–2004) and is a founding member of the Global Leadership Foundation. With Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, he has edited and authored a number of books on conflict management and mediation.

MINDING THE GAP: AFRICAN CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN A TIME OF CHANGE

THE PREVAILING NARRATIVE ON AFRICA

is that it is awash with violent conflict. Indeed, it does suffer from a multitude of conflicts — from border skirmishes to civil wars to terrorist attacks. Conflicts in Africa are diverse and complex, but there have been a number of cases of successful conflict management and resolution. What accounts for the successes and failures, and what can we learn from Africa’s experience?

African Conflict Management in a Time of Change

Published by the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Aall | Crocker

ISBN 978-1-928096-21-4

www.cigionline.org

9 781928 096214

Pamela Aall and Chester A. Crocker, Editors Foreword by the Right Honourable Joe Clark

African Conflict Management in a Time of Change Pamela Aall and Chester A. Crocker, Editors

or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, application for which should be addressed to the Centre for

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ISBN 978-1-928096-21-4 (paper)

ISBN 978-1-928096-22-1 (ebook)

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Centre for International Governance Innovation or its Board of Directors.

Published by the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Printed and bound in Canada.

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Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Right Honourable Joe Clark Abbreviations and Acronyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Part One — Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1

Conflict Management Capacity in Africa: Understanding the Problem and Designing the Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Pamela Aall

Part Two — Conflict in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 2

Understanding the Nature and Origins of Violent Conflict in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Raymond Gilpin

Crises of Political Legitimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Christopher Fomunyoh

Crises of War-to-Peace Transition and Civil War Recurrences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 ’ Funmi Olonisakin

The Dimensions of the Future of Conflict in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 William Reno

Religious Extremism, Insurgent Violence and the Transformation of the New African Security Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

Understanding the Resource Curse Effects: Instability and Violent Conflict in Africa . . . . . . 91 Cyril Obi

Crises of Secessionism, Boundary Irredentism and the Quest for Self-determination in Africa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe

•

Regional Conflicts and Cross-border Activities Fuelled by Criminal and Terrorist Networks in West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Kwesi Aning and Lydia Mawuenya Amedzrator

Part Three — Responding to Crises: Peace Operations and Mediation . . . . . . 133 African Initiatives

10 The African Peace and Security Architecture and Regional Conflict

Management Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Jakkie Cilliers and Amandine Gnanguênon

11 Will the Lowest Be First?: Subsidiarity in Peacemaking in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Laurie Nathan

12 African-led Peace Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Comfort Ero

13 Mediation and Political Tools in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

I William Zartman

14 Eminent Peacemakers in African Conflicts: Contributions, Potential and Limits . . . . . . . . . 201

Gilbert M. Khadiagala

15 African Peace Building: Civil Society Roles in Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Alice Wairimu Nderitu

Role of the International Community — Players and Roles

16 United Nations Peacekeeping in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Paul D. Williams

17 Reflections on External Roles in African Security Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Chester A. Crocker

18 International Support to African Peace Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Neha Sanghrajka and Meredith Preston-McGhie

19 Civil Society as Counter-power: Rethinking International Support Toward Tackling

Conflict and Fostering Non-violent Politics in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Sharath Srinivasan

Part Four — Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 20 Bridging the Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Chester A. Crocker and Pamela Aall

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Foreword The Right Honourable Joe Clark

The last two decades of the twentieth century were marked generally by optimism and some sense of both progress and stability. Deadly conflict was declining, education and innovation transformed lives and communities, millions of people inched out of poverty. If there was a mantra of that period, it was that walls would come down.

This volume is inspired by two broad assumptions. The first is the central importance of careful and informed analysis and discussion. The second is the high relevance and significant role of contemporary Africa. The Centre for International Governance Innovation has done a real service by selecting an experienced editorial team to frame the issues and recruit this top quality array of contributors from Africa, Europe and North America.

This is a different time.Societies everywhere are roiled by tension, pessimism and often fear. In too many cases, once-stable communities hum with incipient or actual conflict. New walls are rising: political, religious, cultural. There is little evidence to suggest that will change, in this world of unprecedented mobility — physical and psychological. With good reason, the steadying deference to leaders or institutions or to an accepted view of the world is eroding. Young generations, weaned on technology and the Internet, have soaring hopes and scant prospects and, therefore, unstable allegiances. Many of the verities we thought we could count on are turning out to be wrong, or at least no longer as applicable as we once believed.

The Mercator map — still the world’s most popular and influential — dramatically exaggerates the size of countries near the North and South Poles. So it shows Greenland to be the same size as Africa, despite the reality that Africa is fully 14 times larger. That distortion is a metaphor: Africa’s impact on our contemporary world is widely underestimated. The continent is too often considered a chaotic outlier to the mainstream of events, interesting, perhaps, but not as significant as the accomplishments or the cracks in betterknown societies and systems. vii

viii

• The Right Honourable Joe Clark

Africa today is no outlier. For a decade, several African economies have been among the fastest growing in the world, for resource and other reasons. Simple population trends foretell that by the end of this century, 40 percent of all humans will be African. Education, innovation, sophistication and — most important — selfconfidence are rising, and so is inter-African co-operation to achieve common goals. More ominously, this kinetic continent seems a seedbed of contagious conflict. What is happening? Why? What are the responses? In this connected world, where trends and troubles travel, there needs to be much more understanding of the nature, the causes and the consequences of these transforming events in Africa. The focus of these chapters is on instability and violent conflict in the continent, and the capacity of effective governance and institutional legitimacy to respond. The importance of that issue transcends the continent itself, because modern conflict

seems to travel faster than other horsemen. As the essays in this volume clearly illustrate, African decision makers are responding to these challenges using diverse forms of co-operation — with each other and with their international partners who recognize that the success or failure of African conflict management has global importance. The contributors to these analyses are experts with deep and open-minded experience in the cultures and capacities of this complex continent. Their purpose is not to provide new pews for settled views, but to help enlarge understanding, opportunities and alliances, inside and outside Africa, including among broad publics who might otherwise look away from this burgeoning continent, or fear what they think they see, and put up new walls. Conflicts are not resolved by ignoring them or wishing them away. We have much to learn about the success and failure of conflict management from the insights and experience contained within this collection.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ACCORD

African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes

ACIRC

African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises

AEC

African Economic Community

AFISMA

African-led International Support Mission in Mali

AFRICOM United States Africa Command AMIB

African Union Mission in Burundi

AMIS

African Union Mission in Sudan

AMISOM

African Union Mission in Somalia

ANC

National Constituent Assembly (Tunisia)

APF

African Peace Fund

APRM

African Peer Review Mechanism

APSA

African Peace and Security Architecture

AQIM

al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb ix

ASF

African Standby Force

African Union

AUBP

AU Border Programme

AUC

African Union Commission

AUHIP

AU High-Level Implementation Panel

AUPD

AU High-Level Panel on Darfur

AU PEAP

AU Panel of Eminent African Personalities

AUPSC

AU Peace and Security Council

CAR

Central African Republic

CBOs

community-based organizations

CEMAC

Central African Economic and Monetary Community

CEN-SAD

Community of Sahel Saharan States

CEWS

Continental Early Warning System

CIGI

Centre for International Governance Innovation

•

CJTF-HOA Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa COMESA CPA CSIS CSOs

CSSDCA CVE

DDPD DoP

DPA

DPKO DPP

DRC EAC

ECCAS ECOMICI ECOMIL

Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Comprehensive Peace Agreement (Sudan) Canadian Security Intelligence Service civil society organizations

Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa countering violent extremism

Doha Document for Peace in Darfur Declaration of Principles

Darfur Peace Agreement

Department for Peacekeeping Operations (UN) Darfur Political Process

Democratic Republic of Congo East African Community

Economic Community of Central African States ECOWAS Mission in Côte d’Ivoire

ECOWAS Mission in Liberia

ECOMOG ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee Military Observer Group ECOWAS EUFOR FDLR FDRE FGS FIS

GIA

GNU

Economic Community of West African States European Union Force

Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda

Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

Federal Government of Somalia Islamic Salvation Front Armed Islamic Group

Government of National Unity

GoS

Government of Sudan

GSPC

Salifist Group for Predication and Combat

GoSS

HD Centre HIPPO ICC

ICG ICU

IEDs

IGAD IGADD IISS ISIS

KMF LFG

LRA

LURD M23

MDC MIA

Government of South Sudan

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations International Criminal Court International Crisis Group Islamic Courts Union

improvised explosive devices

Intergovernmental Authority on Development Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development

International Institute for Strategic Studies Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham Knowledge Management Framework for Mediation Processes

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Lord’s Resistance Army

Liberians United for Reconstruction and Development March 23

Movement for Democratic Change Armed Islamic Movement

MICOPAX Mission for the Consolidation of Peace in Central Africa MINURCAT United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad

MINUSCA United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Central African Republic MINUSMA United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali MISCA

International Support Mission to the Central African Republic

Abbreviations and Acronyms

MNLA

SALWs

small arms and light weapons

SEA

sexual exploitation and abuse

SMS

short message service

SOCOM

Special Operations Command

SPLA

Sudanese People’s Liberation Army

SPLA/M

Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement

SPLM

Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement

SPLM-N

Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement — North

SRSGs

Special Representatives of the Secretary-General

non-governmental organization

T/PCCs

troop- and police-contributing countries

Organisation of African Unity

UIC

Union of Islamic Courts

Orange Democratic Movement

United Nations

OIF

Organisation internationale de la Francophonie

UNAMID

UN-AU Mission in Darfur

ONUB

United Nations Operation in Burundi

UNDP

UN Development Programme

ONUCI

United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire

UNECA

UN Economic Commission for Africa

PAIGC

Partido Africano da Indepêndencia da Guiné e Cabo Verde

UNISFA

UN Interim Security Force for

Panel of Eminent African Personalities

UNMIL

UN Mission in Liberia

UNMISS

Panel of the Wise

UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan

UNOAU

UN Office to the African Union

UNOCI

UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire

UNSC

United Nations Security Council

UNSOA

UN Support Office to AMISOM

UNSOM

UN Assistance Mission in Somalia

VMT

Verification and Monitoring Team

WAEMU

West African Economic and Monetary Union

MONUC

National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad

•

United Nations Organization Mission in the DRC

MONUSCO United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DRC MODEL

Model for Democracy in Liberia

MSN

Mediations Support Network

MoU

MUJAO NATO NEPAD NGO NRN OAU

ODM

PEAP PNU PoW PSC

RECs RMs RPF

SAC

SADC SAF

Memorandum of Understanding Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa North Atlantic Treaty Organization

New Partnership for Africa’s Development Nigerian Research Network

Party of National Unity

Peace and Security Council

Regional Economic Communities regional mechanisms

Rawandan Patriotic Front Strategic Air Command

Southern African Development Community Sudan’s Armed Forces

UNAMSIL UN Mission to Sierra Leone

Abyei

Acknowledgements

Suzanne Cherry’s engagement was crucial in the early months, and the project has benefited greatly from the work of many other people at CIGI.

Of the many people who helped to bring this book to life, we want to thank first the individual authors who not only produced superb chapters but were important contributing partners in this enterprise. They met our requests and deadlines with grace, despite the many important matters that demanded their attention on a daily basis. We are lucky to work with them.

Jakkie Cilliers and his colleagues at the Institute for Security Studies also deserve special recognition. Without them — and the author’s workshop that they organized in Pretoria in June 2015 — this book would have been much diminished. Also very important to the project was the advice we received from experts along the way: Nicholas Bwakira, Johnnie Carson, Jennifer Cooke, Richard Downie, Paul Simon Handy, Cheryl Hendricks, Joao Honwana, Payton Knopf, Princeton Lyman, George Moose, Monde Muyangwa, Lauren Shellito, Susan Stigant, Jon Temin, Alex de Waal, Sarah Welsh and Martine Zeuthen.

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), under the leadership of Rohinton Medhora, has provided an excellent home for this book, sustaining the project in all ways imaginable. Fen Osler Hampson, director of the sponsoring Global Security & Politics Program and a close colleague for over 20 years, supplied the perfect combination of strong support for our work and the freedom to develop the project as we saw fit. Simon Palamar’s thoughtful comments, analysis and research, and his willingness to pitch in to help with everything from arranging meetings to organizing data were invaluable to the project. Brenda Woods’ judicious guidance and first-rate management skills smoothed the way for us on a number of occasions, but also kept us in line when we strayed — mostly inadvertently — and Kaili Hilkewich made the administrative aspects of the project easy from our point of view.

We particularly would like to acknowledge the Right Honourable Joe Clark for his involvement. Not only did he agree to write the foreword but he also offered wise counsel on the project as a whole, both at the Pretoria workshop and on other occasions. Finally, we want to thank the CIGI Publications staff, especially Carol Bonnett and Kristen Scott Ndiaye, whose professionalism and good humour have made creating this book a very enjoyable process. xiii

Part One Introduction

1 Conflict Management Capacity in Africa: Understanding the Problem and Designing the Solution Pamela Aall

onflict management, like auto repair and medicine, is an applied field. Doctors and car mechanics base their work on matching analysis to action: making an accurate diagnosis of the problem and prescribing an appropriate remedy. So do conflict managers. Responding to conflicts requires action to manage the crises â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the violence, the political discord and the humanitarian consequences of prolonged fighting. But it also requires action to rebuild communities, societies and states torn apart by conflict, addressing the long-term social and economic impact of the conflict. This complex formula requires a multi-faceted approach and the cooperation of many different individuals and institutions. How well are African states and societies coping with these dual challenges? What are the prospects for a multi-faceted, collaborative approach to conflict management? In light of the

significant international official and non-official engagement in peacemaking in Africa, how effective are the international efforts and how well do they work with African initiatives? Recognizing the difficulty of diagnosing and designing remedies for the complex conflicts that Africa is facing, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) has launched a project on Africa and its capacity to prevent, contain and resolve conflicts. The principal aim of the project will be to understand African regional conflict management capacity, identify gaps and make recommendations to bridge those divides. This book is the first product of this multi-year initiative and provides a deep look into African capacity, with and without international assistance, to manage and resolve violent conflicts through peacekeeping, mediation and related means. 3

Pamela Aall

200,000

175,000

150,000

125,000

100,000

75,000

50,000

25,000

10 20

06 20

99 19

Data Source: Armed Conflict and Location Event Data, version 5, www.acleddata.com.

Figure 2: Annual Battlefield-related Deaths in Africa 80,000

60,000

40,000

Battlefield deaths (best estimate)

2013

2011

2012

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2003

2004

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1993

1994

1992

20,000

1991

However, the need for conflict management outstrips demand. Non-traditional conflicts involving such groups as Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Lord’s Resistance Army, have made world headlines for their violence and extreme hostility toward their governments and societies. These nontraditional conflicts feature non-state actors whose motivations and means of operating are only vaguely understood by official institutions (Agbiboa 2013; Walker 2012). Identity-based conflicts reflecting ethnic, religious and tribal cleavages have entered deep into society and require conflict management at the grassroot, social-institution levels, as well as at the national political levels. Other elements — migration, health concerns — continue to be socially destabilizing (Green 2012). While the formal network of African conflict management institutions may be robust in appearance, its capacity is quite limited and relations between

Figure 1: Annual Deaths Attributed to Political Violence in Africa

Conflicts in Africa are diverse and complex, and efforts at managing and resolving them are mixed. In some respects, the news is good. The number of conflicts seems to be on a downward trajectory since the 1990s and early 2000s (Themner and Wallensteen 2014; Burback and Fettweis 2014). Many African conflicts have been settled and peace has returned to a number of societies previously affected by organized violence. The creation of a tapestry of African continental and sub-continental organizations with relatively robust mandates in the peace and security arena provides an improving institutional basis for managing conflict. A number of major regional figures, including the late Nelson Mandela, former South African President Thabo Mbeki, and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have played significant roles in mediation on the continent. Several civil society institutions dedicated to public policy, peace and security and/ or conflict resolution research provide a brain trust for policy development and lessons learned.

African governments also can impede cooperation. Outside help has not always been reliable. The UN Security Council, polarized over the invasion of Libya in 2011, has not functioned well as an authorizing body for interventions in hot conflicts for some time (Iyi 2014). Only recently has the drawdown in Afghanistan and Iraq freed up more US military resources to augment the United States Africa Command’s (AFRICOM’s) counterterrorism training in Africa (Cloud 2014).

The Problem

1990

•

1989

Battlefield deaths (range of estimates)

Data Source: Battlefield-related Deaths, Dataset v. 5-2014, Uppsala Conflict Data Program, www.ucdp.uu.se, Uppsala University.

Given this situation, understanding what works and what does not is critical. Most conflict management initiatives in Africa have involved one of two mechanisms — peace operations

Conflict Management Capacity in Africa: Understanding the Problem and Designing the Solution

• 5

and/or mediation. The purpose of these missions has been to stop the fighting in order to allow a political process to develop. This, for instance, was the intention behind the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan, mediated by General Lazaro Sumbeiywo representing the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and with the support of the United Kingdom, Norway, the United States, Italy and others. The CPA mandated a cessation of hostilities between the north and the south, as well as creation of power-sharing government arrangements over a period of six years. That six-year period, which might have strengthened governmental structures, did nothing to bolster Sudan’s capacity as a nation-state. It served mainly as a waiting period before the country split apart for good as a result of the CPA-mandated 2011 referendum. This outcome did not end the fighting — border skirmishes between Sudan and South Sudan and violence in Darfur continue, and power struggles divide South Sudan.

identity. In most cases, these issues intersect. Conflicts that start as elite struggles for power quickly turn into identity-based violence, as members of one religious or ethnic group target members of other groups.

The Sudan example raises the question of whether mediation and peacekeeping are the best means of managing and resolving conflicts in Africa (Quinn et al. 2013; Mutanda 2013). With the interplay of political, social and economic factors at play in every conflict, even a highly sophisticated approach, such as a high-level UN mediation, can address only some of the conflict dynamics. In order to make peacekeeping and mediation more effective, how should they be planned and implemented, who should be engaged, under what conditions and when? How can they be strengthened, and what other approaches to managing conflict could complement — or replace — their activities?

While each of these conflicts is different, they seem to share common elements — profound disagreements over the basic vision of what the nation is, struggles over state-society relations and contests over who gets to rule. They also share the risk of rapid expansion of conflict across borders, often creating conditions that promote foreign involvement, whether from a neighbour or from non-state actors.

Diagnosis and Remedy The first step in answering these questions is an effective diagnosis of the problem. However, diagnosis is difficult in Africa’s wars, which have occurred over a variety of issues — land, resources, political power, profits, security, religion and

These problems are compounded by other difficulties, some of which are universal (for example, corruption), and others that are mostly associated with particular countries at the moment — that is, rulers unwilling to step down despite constitutional term limits or election outcomes1 In volatile regions such as central Africa, the regionalization of civil strife intensifies the effect. The results for the population are devastating — civilian killings, massive population dislocation, and breakdown of social and economic structures, including health care, education and employment. Not only are the effects severe, they are also widespread. In 2014, conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa displaced more than 12 million people in in the region (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2015).

How have different actors analyzed these conflicts and designed conflict management remedies based on that diagnosis? With the vast variety of contexts in Africa, it is difficult to generalize about the remedies. However, an initial review of African conflict management initiatives indicates that they often fall into categories that are common in other peacemaking efforts (Aall 2015). These approaches view conflict as a result of power struggles between or among several armed groups; weak states and weak state institutions incapable of providing security and services; or radically different visions of the future, because of identity

•

Pamela Aall

differences. Decisions about responses or remedies reflect initial analysis. While these actions are not mutually exclusive and in fact often spill into each other, it is useful to look at them separately to better understand their premises. Power Struggles as Sources of Conflict: Violent conflict over power characterizes many conflicts, in Africa and elsewhere. Some of these conflicts have been leadership struggles between more or less equally resourced armed factions, as was the Mozambican conflict between FRELIMO (Front for Liberation of Mozambique) and RENAMO (Mozambique Resistance Movement), and the Angolan conflict between the MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola). Others have been challenges to sitting governments based on profound disagreements over governance and legitimacy (Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic [CAR], Mali, South Sudan, Libya, Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC]/Kivu conflict). Some incumbent regimes are dominated by elites whose approach to governance is influenced by their desire to protect their own interests and the interests of their constituencies (Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria). (See Figures 1 and 2). Response: One approach to violent conflicts around contested leadership is to increase elite incentives to negotiate an agreement and decrease incentives to settle the dispute by force. Raising the cost of violence certainly lies behind a large part of international action to manage conflict in Africa, mainly through international military or security interventions. While international military action is often motivated by humanitarian concerns, it also serves to change the facts on the ground, raising the costs to all combatants of continuing to fight. There is a lot of activity in this area. In mid-2014, the United Nations was involved in nine active peace operations in Africa — Mali, Darfur, Abyei, South Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, the DRC, Western Sahara and the CAR. In October 2014, the European Union

had military operations in Mali, the CAR and Somalia, and security-oriented civilian missions in Djibouti, Tanzania, the DRC, Niger, Mali and Libya. Some of the operations are joint, some coordinated and some are sole-actor, but with 20 or more peace and security missions occurring in Africa in 2013 and 2014, it is a crowded field. Another response is through limiting access to resources that can fund conflict. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler (2002, 13–28) analyzed a wide variety of sub-Saharan civil wars and found a linkage between Africa’s “poor economic performance” and the outbreak of conflict. They also linked the establishment of rebel organizations to the availability of lootable natural resources to funding the establishment of the rebel groups (Collier and Hoeffler 2011, 25). While their conclusions have stirred controversy, they have had a significant policy impact, which can be seen in the drive for more transparency and accountability by the World Bank, national aid agencies (such as the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom), and nongovernmental organization (NGO) initiatives such as Publish What You Pay (Nathan 2008; Keen 2012). Whether or not Collier and his colleagues are right about the causation links, it is clear that limiting access to resources — through transparency measures, sanctions or aid suspension — may indeed change the equation, both for rebels and governments pursuing violent methods to promote their causes. Without access to easily convertible resources, funding war-related costs may be beyond the reach of the conflict parties. Weak Institutions as Sources of Conflict: Another diagnostic framework focuses on state capacity. In this view, conflicts occur in fragile, weak and failing states where national institutions have lost authority over their own territories, with limited ability to reach beyond their capital cities or provide security and services to their people. There are many definitions of what constitutes fragile, weak and failing states. Fragile states are often ranked in terms of their gross national

Conflict Management Capacity in Africa: Understanding the Problem and Designing the Solution

income, with the lowest being most fragile. This is the typology (LICUS, or low income countries under stress) developed by the World Bank in 2004 (Carvalho 2006). Robert I. Rotberg (2003, 4) stresses the wide variety of weak states, noting that they form “a broad continuum of states that are inherently weak because of geographical, physical, or fundamental economic constraints.” Susan Rice and Stewart Patrick (2008, 5) define weak states as “countries lacking the capacity and/or will to foster an environment conducive to sustainable and equitable economic growth; to establish and maintain legitimate, transparent and accountable political institutions; to secure their populations from violent conflict and to control their territory; and to meet the basic human needs of their population.” Definitions of failing and failed states, at times, incorporate elements of state predation and armed conflict between the government and its challengers, as the example of South Sudan illustrates (Rotberg 2003; Fund for Peace 2014). While this link has been observed in some conflicts, the central problem in others (Somalia and the DRC) is the lack of government, rather than its predation (Harpviken 2010). Barry Hughes, Jonathan Moyer and Timothy Sisk (2011, 8) use the term “vulnerability to conflict” to capture the link between state weakness and conflict. Their typology of states of “red-level vulnerability” provides a classification of the kinds of conditions that produce fr al grievances; states with deep internal ethnic and sectarian differences; and states still in transition from previous conflicts or peace-building efforts (both the result of negotiated settlements and victories of one side or the other). Response: The international or donor response to institutional weakness and fragility usually focuses on developing more representative and responsive governmental institutions. Toward this end, the European Union has a robust institutionalstrengthening program for the African Peace and Security Architecture “to enhance continental

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and regional capabilities for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict” (European Union 2015). Specific goals include helping the regional components of the African Standby Force and the Continental Early Warning System, as well as in building up policing capability. The US State Department aspires to strengthen peacekeeping capacity through its African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. The US military’s AFRICOM program has a core mission of assisting African states and regional organizations to strengthen their defence capabilities to better enable “Africans to address their security threats and reduce threats to U.S. interests.” According to its mission statement, it concentrates its efforts “on contributing to the development of capable and professional militaries that respect human rights, adhere to the rule of law, and more effectively contribute to stability in Africa” (AFRICOM 2015). Identity Divisions as Sources of Conflict: A third diagnostic approach centres around identitybased conflicts that produce deeply divided visions for the future of Africa. These existential, identitybased antagonisms are very difficult to deal with politically, in part, because they produce a zerosum attitude toward shared governance. Ethnic rivalries have characterized conflict in Africa for decades, but the new wave of violent extremism has heightened sectarian antagonisms and conflict within and across borders. This complex brew pits group against group (Darfur, the CAR, Nigeria) and/or features groups forming and breaking temporary alliances for their own ends (Tuaregs and Islamic fighters in Mali). Linkages can also develop between homegrown and transnational groups, as the March 2015 pledge of allegiance that Boko Haram made to the Islamic State illustrates. Even conflicts that are primarily about elite-based power struggles — that is, who gets to rule — may reflect deep cleavages over identity (for example, Côte d’Ivoire). Response: The conflict management community, including those in the non-governmental

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sphere, has often dealt with identity-based conflict through building relationships between the antagonists. This relationship building may take the form of dialogue processes, people-topeople programs or problem-solving workshops (Saunders 2001; Kelman 1996; USAID 2010). However, violent extremism and the mobilization of radical ideologues present challenges that go beyond the identity-based conflicts of the 1990s and 2000s. The attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was specific in its immediate goals — to kill the editors, writers and cartoonists who produced inflammatory (in the eyes of the attackers) materials. And yet, the ultimate target was unclear. Was it an attack on the French government for its role in Syria and the Sahel? Or was it an attack on Western civilization in general for its relativist and amoral messages? Or was it an attack on the concept and practice of freedom of speech (CNN 2015)? The same uncertainty characterizes Boko Haram’s goals — is it fighting the Nigerian government, Nigerian social mores (including education) or democratic, liberal culture in general? This imprecision in terms of target is a problem on the analytical side. But there is also a serious problem on the response side. Most of the tools of conflict management — military intervention, diplomacy, containment, sanctions, dialogue and problem-solving workshops — are not effective against terrorism. In order to contain this new threat, a number of countries have developed programs of “countering violent extremism” (CVE), an indirect approach that focuses on changing the conditions around the conflict, especially popular attitudes toward the extremists’ legitimacy (that is, changing hearts and minds) (Nasser-Eddine et al. 2011; Aldrich 2012; Department of Homeland Security 2014). Working on CVE changes the traditional roles of the institutions involved. It requires close cooperation between governments and civil society inside the conflict country. It requires the same close cooperation among official and non-official institutions in the outside parties

that are helping to address the threat. It means a much deeper understanding of the role that social institutions — education, media, religion — play in defining the conflict environment. It also means taking cues from partners within the societies that are experiencing conflict (Wehr and Lederach 1991). In short, it means a very different modus operandi than has been used in the past.

Going Forward Each of the above approaches to diagnosing the problem results in fairly distinct policy decisions on how best to resolve the conflicts. Those who believe that the desire for political power lies at the root of conflict will attempt to change the behaviour of the antagonists through concrete means — peace operations, diplomacy or other ways of altering the cost-benefit equation that governs their actions. Those who feel that weak institutions are the stress points will focus on institution building. And those who believe that deep identity-based animosities drive conflict will try to address these animosities through building enhanced relationships or by strengthening social resistance to inflammatory ideas. Mediation, of course, can play a central or supporting role in all these remedies. However, as the above example of identity conflicts — where the “remedy” has changed from dialogue processes to CVE programs — illustrates, the conflict analysis task is both complex and dynamic, especially as the conflicts themselves change in nature. Misdiagnosis leading to misaligned remedies is costly and potentially dangerous. Of course, it is important to remember that misaligned remedies come about for many reasons beyond a faulty diagnosis. For instance, conflict management institutions may favour one technique over another, because: they have a great deal of expertise in using the technique (the United Nations and mediation or peace operations, NGOs and dialogue); the remedy mirrors their own world view (European Union and institution

Conflict Management Capacity in Africa: Understanding the Problem and Designing the Solution

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building); or the activities support a larger global policy (the war against terrorism). At other times, the diagnosis may be appropriate to the situation but the conflict management institution is unable to gain traction as a recognized player. This was the case with the African Union (AU) effort to act as an interlocutor in the Libya conflict in 2011 (De Waal 2013). However, getting the analysis right remains a central challenge to individuals and institutions — whether insiders or outsiders — that engage in conflict management.

• How well are African institutions using peacekeeping or military force to stop fighting in order to allow a political process to comprehensively settle disputes to begin?

Understanding the Gap

• How effective are these techniques (peacekeeping and mediation) in leading to sustainable peace?

Understanding the challenges of appropriate diagnosis and remedy lie at the heart of Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in a Time of Change. The book’s purpose is to provide an assessment of Africa’s conflict management capacity, examining its strengths and weaknesses, and identifying concrete means to bridge those divides as well as highlighting areas for future research. The book brings together leading security and conflict management experts and practitioners from government, academia and civil society. These authors represent different areas of expertise and experience. Some focus on the official capacity to respond to conflict, while others draw their lessons from the non-official sector. Some are experts on institutions while others concentrate on the capacity of the individuals to affect change. Some centre their attention on policy makers and practitioners, others on scholars and analysts who study underlying trends and dynamics behind conflict and its management. Most are from Africa and all have a long history of engagement and a wealth of experience in these topics. The book focuses on five main questions: • How well understood are the sources and dynamics of conflict in Africa? What are the gaps in dealing with conflict in Africa, what are their causes and how can they be filled?

• How effective are individual Africans or African institutions in mediating political agreements? • How effective are international institutions (for example, the United Nations, the European Union) in supporting African-led peace processes or in doing the peacekeeping and mediation themselves?

The first part of Minding the Gap focuses on conflict in Africa. It looks at several major sources of violent conflict in Africa, including internal political crises (challenges to the state) and crossborder crises arising from refugee flows, foreign support for internal conflict parties, border disputes, criminality and terrorism. The failure of most approaches to analyzing African conflict to fully grasp its nature and dynamics is the starting point of Raymond Gilpin’s chapter on the root and proximate causes of African conflicts. He points out that most violent conflicts in Africa can be forecast and are in fact predictable surprises preceded by leading indicators, meaning that the possibility that violence will occur in a tense situation is foreseeable. However, the tendency of policy makers and analysts to use labels to classify conflicts — for instance the labels of “power politics,” “weak governance” and “identity-based rivalries” mentioned in the previous section — hobbles the ability of policy makers to design appropriate responses to what are often complex and messy situations. Cyril Obi’s chapter on natural resources and conflict underlines the deleterious effect of misdiagnosis. He argues that the problem of natural resources lies in the structure of governance and the nature of the social compact — in other words, how the revenues from natural resource industries are distributed — as much as it

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lies in improving technical regulations of natural resource extraction and commercialization. Much of the current discourse focuses on transparency and accountability in government revenues and how they are used. However, Obi argues that in order to reduce violent conflict, there is also a need for a better distribution of revenues among communities in resource-rich states, and for building trust among local communities, the state authorities and companies involved in natural resource development. Chris Fumonyoh also emphasizes the importance of strengthening the social compact in addressing crises of political legitimacy in Africa. His chapter discusses the issue of political legitimacy — how it is defined, why it is importan, and why it matters for stability and peace — and notes that internal conflicts and/or civil wars in Africa are often caused by a breakdown of the relationship between the state and society when a government has done something to squander its legitimacy. These harmonious relationships between state and society are occasionally restored when a government that comes into power by coup introduces democratic practices after a period of stabilization, as happened in Ghana during the Rawlings era. More often, however, the restoration needs more dramatic measures — adoption of governments of national unity, for instance, or a redrafting of the national constitution — as well as efforts to build or rebuild trust between the government and its society. If a state is considered a geographical territory under an organized government, then Africa also has challenges in both of these areas. Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe examines the problems of African boundary making and the impact on current African conflicts in the form of border disputes, irredentism, separatism and demands for self-determination. He notes that boundary disputes very often are present in African conflicts, but despite their nearly ubiquitous nature, these disputes rarely feature on the agenda of the African peace and conflict institutions. Instead,

poorly defined national borders only make it onto the policy agenda when a disagreement over undemarcated borders breaks out into violent conflict. His recommendation is to address them not on a case-by-case basis, but to strengthen continental mechanisms such as the AU Border Program and to make a concerted effort to address issues around borders, diversity management and self-determination at the national leadership level of the African Union. William Reno addresses two challenges to weak states: “civil wars” in which the regime descends into a war against itself, and the “activist” model — conflicts in which the regime is confronted by forces that come from outside the regime and challenge its authority. Civil wars are based on challenges (which may come from within the government itself ) to a specific incumbent establishment, but the outcome generally reproduces the institutions, governance structure and society that existed before the war. The activist model, on the other hand, is a conflict where challengers want to change the system, to introduce a new way of governing or a new society, which might be more democratic and open to liberalizing influences from abroad or might be more repressive and illiberal. While noting that civil wars will likely form the preponderance of conflict in Africa’s weak states in the near future, Reno points to examples in which the two types of challenges build on each other to provide a stronger threat against the state, sometimes through the manipulation of the conflict narrative. Foreign intervention can exacerbate this trend — the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006 opened a space for Al-Shabaab to recruit Somalis on the basis that Al-Shabaab was resisting a foreign invasion, thereby strengthening the activist element of the Somali civil war. The chapter by Mohammed-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou further investigates the nature of the activist — or insurgent non-state actor — challenge to security in Africa. He notes that these non-state actors differ from the guerillas, rebels

Conflict Management Capacity in Africa: Understanding the Problem and Designing the Solution • 11

and warlords of the past in their hybrid nature with goals ranging from imposing religious order to gaining territory (depending on the situation) and in their transnational reach. His analysis of the history of three groups – Al-Shabaab, alQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram — reinforces these distinctions. While all three are often seen as motivated only by religion, he points out that their motivations are often mixed and include a desire to fix the social and economic environments in which they act, and to replace what they see as corrupt and ineffective governments. Since religion is a powerful engine for their movements, any countermeasures will have to include religious engagement, including dialogues by religious leaders and educational initiatives as well as social programs. However, Mohamedou concludes that the current success of the non-state actors to use religion to make gains in the territories they occupy will continue to be a challenge to African conflict management in the foreseeable future. Kwesi Aning and Lydia Amedzrator reprise the theme of the hybrid nature of the nonstate actor phenomenon in their chapter on criminal and terrorists networks in West Africa. Due to a mix of weak governments, inadequate security, unregulated arms trade, out-of-work mercenaries and swathes of disaffected peoples, transborder criminality has been on the rise in West Africa, joining forces with local groups employing violent extremism to promote their ends. Aning and Amedzrator emphasize the link between the governance deficits and the spread of criminality, but also look at the role that family and tribal relations play in developing ties among criminals, terrorists and the inhabitants of local communities, as well as the role of social media in promoting those ties. Emphasizing the part played by political figures, they recommend focusing on changing the behaviour of state and local officials who facilitate interactions between these groups in addition to heightening border security and redistributing national resources toward currently marginalized communities.

’Funmi Olonisakin focuses squarely on the importance of leadership in post-conflict settings. Asking why negotiated agreements often revert to conflict within a few years of the settlement, she finds the answer in two areas. The first is the nature of leadership in this period. She notes that “[a]mbitions of democratic consolidation in such places without evidence of organic leadership processes are tantamount to ‘building castles in the air.’” Organic leadership goes beyond the mantle of legitimacy conveyed by elections, the leadership qualities shown by a charismatic personality or the record of what the leader achieved. Organic leadership focuses on the process — how a leader governs, how he or she conveys a sense of shared experience in the conflict in the post-conflict periods, how the leader interacts with others and how that leader uses his or her influence to help the nation or society reach a common goal. In addition to the importance of leadership, she also points out that the post-conflict period gives an opportunity to reform state and social institutions that have been inherited from the earliest days of post-colonial Africa. Unless these difficult conversations and reforms are part of the war-topeace transition, the country risks a return to war again soon, often over the same issues. Most of the chapters referred to so far have recommended long-term approaches to the addressing the problem of conflict — reforming a country’s governance structure and leadership cadre, engaging with whole societies (not just the authorities), strengthening the social compact between citizen and state, and strengthening regional mechanisms to address conflict. As these activities occur, however, there also needs to be a dedicated effort to end the fighting, either through the use of force or through political dialogue. The authors in the second part of the book examine efforts to stop violent conflict, increase security or foster settlements that would create a space for the negotiations needed to bring about long-term change. This section of the book addresses three types of responses: peacekeeping/ peace operations, generally undertaken by the

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United Nations, the African Union and Africa’s subregional organizations, or a powerful outside state; mediation, provided by the same set of institutions along with NGOs and eminent persons within and outside of Africa; and nonofficial approaches, traditionally performed by international NGOs but increasingly carried out by domestic civil society groups. In the second part of Minding the Gap, several authors examine the efficacy of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in addressing conflict. As complex as the threats it faces, the APSA is a combination of institutions, politics and norms that make up a continental network intended to prevent and resolve crises and conflict, and to support post-conflict reconstruction and development efforts. The entities that comprise the APSA include the African Union, the AU Commission, the AU Peace and Security Council, the Panel of the Wise, the Continental Early Warning System, the African Standby Force, and the Peace Fund. A critical element in this continental network are the Regional Economic Communities (RECs), which play a strong and sometimes dominant role in bringing stability to their regions. Another element of the equation is the relationship between the APSA and the large international actors — the United Nations, the European Union, France, Britain, the United States and China. While the APSA looks robust on paper, it suffers from a number of substantial shortcomings. In their chapter on the APSA and regional conflict management mechanisms, Jakkie Cilliers and Amandine Gnanguênon highlight the lack of coordination and communication between the RECs and the African Union. There are no clearly established rules of the road for engagement between the RECs and the African Union. While the RECs — at least in principle — recognize the African Union as the lead organization in Africa, the RECs often unilaterally launch stabilization and peacemaking missions when turbulence in their neighbourhood starts to threaten regional security

or the interests of a major REC stakeholder. The Economic Community of West African States — dominated by Nigeria — got involved in Côte d’Ivoire during the country’s first civil war; the Southern African Development Community has intervened in Lesotho, and IGAD (in which Ethiopia plays a leading role) is a major player in South Sudan. The fact that there is overlapping membership between the African Union and the RECs has not necessarily helped to smooth relationships among the institutions. As Cilliers and Gnanguenon point out, the competition between and among African states at times plays out in the relationship between the African Union and the RECs, as the member states pursue agendas within the regional organizations to suit their own interests. This pursuit of national agendas is one reason that African-led peace operations have had mixed success, as Comfort Ero suggests in her chapter. While it might mean that a subregional organization is dragged into an intervention because only some members wish it, it has also allowed the powerful African states to “assert their right to be at the front line of initiating or influencing peace operations.” This desire to take the lead may not come with the ability to pay for the operation, which typically still requires international help. Nevertheless, the large number of trained peacemaking troops does mean that the African Union or RECs can lead and staff the missions, and their willingness to take risks and endure casualties may result in more effective engagements than the more constrained UN-led missions. However, Ero cautions that this local ownership cuts both ways, as it means that these operations can also be held hostage to regional politics. The chapters by Cilliers and Gnanguenon, and Ero highlight the tension between growing African capacity to manage conflicts and persistent African politics and constraints that undercut that capacity. International support for African conflict management efforts adds additional layers of complexity. Chester A. Crocker characterizes the

Conflict Management Capacity in Africa: Understanding the Problem and Designing the Solution • 13

situation as a “pragmatic, but dynamic” arrangement in which the region depends on international partners to provide financial and military resources, and a few institutions and countries outside the region find it in their interests or mandates to supply those resources. Crocker documents the powerful and enduring role that the former colonial power France plays in current-day Africa. France’s approach of continual engagement offers a strong contrast to the current role of Britain, the other significant colonial power. Both have intervened directly in the past decades in chaotic conflict situations to re-establish order: Britain in Sierra Leone (2000) and France in Côte d’Ivoire (2002) and in Mali (2014), and both played a strong role in the international action in Libya in 2011. However, in recent years, British involvement has dropped sharply while the French presence continues with troops deployed mostly in West African states. What impact does the unique FrenchFrancophone Africa security relationship have on conflict management on the continent and how does it compare and contrast with the evolving US security relationships led by AFRICOM? More broadly, the chapter raises questions about what kind of international coercive engagement helps, and whether these models of conflict management are sustainable. How long will the traditional partners be willing to supply the necessary policing whenever conflict threatens to get out of hand? The UN support for managing violent conflict on the continent has been even more robust over the past 25 years, rising from two UN-led peacekeeping missions in 1990 to nine in 2015. These missions represent a majority of UN peacekeeping missions globally and served as a proving ground for UN engagement in managing conflict through the implementation or enforcement of ceasefires and similar activities. As Paul Williams observes, however, these experiences have raised operational questions for UN peacekeepers, including how to engage in missions with non-state actors that do not respect humanitarian law, how to react when host nations seek to control or terminate UN Security Council-authorized missions, and how to

deal with the mix of illicit activities and insurgents that Aning and Amedzrator describe in their chapter. Even more serious are the fundamental questions of what the UN is trying to accomplish through its missions. Is it trying to preserve a ceasefire or rebuild a society and, whatever the answer, do its capabilities match its mandate? It is clear that this steady pattern of outsiders participating in Africa’s security and conflict management efforts complicates the aspirational goal of “African solutions for African problems.” These outsider-led or -funded interventions come when the fighting threatens to destroy societies or spill over into wider regional conflicts, but the conflicts themselves are often caused by political struggles within a single state. Most of these external operations are carried out in partnership with African institutions, generally the African Union or the RECs, thus supporting the African solution model. But partnerships with and between intergovernmental institutions mean that political alliances with partners who might not share identical long-term visions, goals or values will remain a challenge for all members of the group. In addition, the question of which institution to collaborate with — an REC or the African Union, and which of these have the lead in a particular intervention — only adds to the head-scratching on the part of outsiders. Laurie Nathan’s long, hard look at the principle of subsidiarity — which determines the order in which mediation should occur, starting at the lowest institutional level possible before travelling up the chain to the United Nations — suggests that it will remain a disputed principle in the foreseeable future. In both mediation and peacekeeping, the coordination that should result from observing subsidiarity is often subverted by national political agendas. His recommendation is that the peacemaking institutions — the RECs, the African Union and the United Nations — instead consider their relationships as partnerships rather than compete over who goes first or who is in the lead in which process. A partnership

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would imply a fluid approach to leadership, with comparative advantage rather than a strict template determining which institution assumes the principal role. This would require a concerted effort to improve communication and coordination among the UN Security Council, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, and the state-based decision-making bodies of the RECs, a tall order in the best of circumstances. However, Nathan believes that, in general, it would result in better (if not perfect) cooperation than depending on subsidiarity as an organizing principle. Subsidiarity issues also affect mediation. There are many available African candidates available to act as mediators: countries or groups of countries, the RECs, the African Union, a number of NGOs and eminent individuals, acting as a group or alone. Internationally, the same types of mediators have been involved in African peace processes, such as Britain, France, the European Union, the NGO Sant’Egidio, the United Nations, the United States and former US President Jimmy Carter. This list implies that during a conflict in Africa, the combatants would have their choice of the best or most appropriate mediators for the job, but often there are several mediating missions that are on the ground simultaneously, which compete with each other as much as they support each other. I William Zartman analyzes both strengths and weaknesses of such a plethora of mediators, but makes the point often missed in discussions of African conflict management capacity: Africa has a lot to teach the rest of the world in this area of mediation. Its experience in homegrown mediation efforts is rich and there have been a number of successful ventures, including the mediation by General Lazaro Sumbeiywo in Sudan, leading to the 2005 peace agreement ,and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s efforts in Kenya in 2008. Despite the continent’s wealth of mediation experience and talent, there are still a number of seemingly intractable conflicts in Africa. To

increase the chances of effectively addressing these conflicts, Zartman offers recommendations on the who and the how of mediation. He recommends against selecting former leaders to be mediators simply because they have led governments. The skills required for mediation are often different from the sets of political skills these former presidents and prime ministers have honed, and former leaders often show a reluctance to engage in the kind of trading of ideas and debriefing that should be part of any successful mediation. On the other hand, he does recommend learning from the experience of mediating local conflicts and strengthening capacity at that level in order to prevent conflicts from escalating. Finally, once a mediation process is underway, he counsels that a single point of focus be established and respected in order to give the mediation effort leverage and momentum, in fact as well as on paper. While this single point of focus would seem a natural outgrowth of the principle of subsidiarity, this aspect often gets lost when the principle meets reality. The question of whether eminent persons — both former heads of states and other luminaries — are effective mediators is the core of Gilbert Khadiagala’s chapter. He notes that traditions involving dispute resolution by community elders gives current elder statesmen and women a strong platform and the legitimacy to intervene in conflicts. He documents a number of cases of both success and failure, concluding that eminent persons perform more effectively when they are embedded in institutions that can provide the support and the opportunity for discussion and debriefing that Zartman recommends. A critical observation in this chapter, however, is that mediation is not the answer to all conflict problems. No matter how skilled the elder nor how firm the institutional backup, “…African mediators, like mediators elsewhere, are midwives with only the capacity to help when the conflict dynamics are propitious for a peaceful settlement.”

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Like many other parts of the African conflict management picture, the relationship between the international community and African mediation and other peacemaking efforts has been mixed. Neha Sanghrajka and Meredith Preston-McGhie detail the range of international support to African mediation efforts, including financial, operational and technical support, institutional capacity building, lending political leverage and offering guarantees for the implementation of agreements. Where it works, as in the Guinea-Bissau crisis of 2009–2011 and the Kenyan peacemaking effort of 2007-2008, the international support provides essential resources and pressure for the process without distracting from the principal African-led mediation process. In a number of cases, however, the same troubles that plague peace operations complicate international support of mediation — differing interpretations of the conflict, differing remedies and competing engagements — and have complicated mediation efforts in the Central African Republic and South Sudan. Many Africans feel that the ICC deliberately targets African leaders, which causes difficulties in developing support for a mediation process when those same leaders are involved in internal conflicts. Another challenge for international support for African mediation goes back to the lack of coordination between the RECs and the African Union: in the case of competing missions, which of these two organizational structures should outsiders support? Responding to violent conflict has generally been the work of official institutions — national governments and militaries, the RECs, the African Union, foreign governments, UN special representatives, international peacekeeping operations and hybridized efforts that combine several of these elements. But in an environment where most conflicts target civilians, devastate local communities, and involve the failure or inability of official authorities to provide basic services, Africa’s civil society organizations play an important role in filling the gaps. Alice Nderitu asserts that most civil society organizations are

active in managing conflict by necessity: in an area where conflict is a way of life, civil society organizations must learn how to handle conflict in order to carry out their primary functions. She documents several cases in which local civil society organizations have played constructive roles in strengthening communities in the face of Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria, and aided in violence-to-peace transitions in Kenya. However, she also puts forward a number of cases in which civil society was unable to gain traction, and raises issues around the shrinking space for civil society to act where they encounter hostile regimes and increasingly repressive legal environments, such as in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Sharath Srinivasan develops this theme in his chapter on international support for African civil society, noting that not only is the civil society space shrinking in Africa because of authoritarian governments, but also because of the international community’s firm commitment to prioritizing short-term stabilization efforts over longer-term efforts to build more accountable, conflict-resistant societies. Under these circumstances, he asks the fundamental question of whether civil society is able to be a viable and constructive counterweight to the power of the state. In addition, the inability of civil society to promote goals such as effective and responsive governments, more robust links between governmental authorities and citizenry, functioning and representative political parties, and reconciled societies has a direct impact on Africa’s ability to prevent and resolve conflict. Instead of helping to strengthen civil society’s ability to act effectively within its environment, external donors often exacerbate the problems, setting up dependency relationships with NGOs that conform to the donors’ agendas and ignoring those civil society institutions that do not. This is civil society capacity building with “strings attached,” the result of “outsiders’ imaginings of how civil politics should work in healthy contestations between society and state,” not in the conflict-prone environment of state-building in Africa.

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Conclusion There is no doubt that tensions among international, regional, national and local actors continue to complicate collective conflict management efforts at every stage: diagnosing the conflict, formulating remedies to resolve it and implementing those solutions. Coordination among institutions with different mandates, governing structures, resources and capabilities has caused disorder in the conflict management field for decades. While the “Wild West” days of the early 1990s — when competing interventions into the same conflict allowed belligerents to go on forum shopping sprees — are behind us, coordination and cooperation still test the practice of conflict management. Addressing complex conflict systems requires a complex, multi-faceted response. The United Nations recognized this complexity in its attempts to respond to current conflict in Africa. The mandate, for example, of the UN mission to the CAR includes protection of civilians, preserving the government’s ability to control its territory, mediation, rebuilding of the criminal justice system, human rights protection, national dialogue processes and addressing root causes of the violence in the CAR (United Nations 2015). This list is comprehensive and shows a good grasp of the causes of conflict and the appropriate responses. What it does not reflect is the difficulty this list of tasks would pose for any one organization, nor the tensions that erupt when one institution asserts its authority and imposes its vision and operating methods on others. In the end, however, the stakes are too high in terms of human lives and regional stability to allow these tensions to paralyze peace processes. The authors in this book recognize these stakes and do not simply catalogue the challenges. They also advance solutions, changing the rules of the road for collaboration in conflict management. In the end, it is clear that responding to current complex conflicts demands competencies beyond the reach of any single institution. A principal task over the next five to 10 years is to develop

an effective network of organizations that bring different assets and abilities to the assignment. This network — joining international, regional, national and local institutions — would spread burdens, risks and responsibilities. It would also require considerable coordination. In order to gain traction in today’s complex conflicts, organizations need to learn how to expand their own competencies by collaborating with others in diagnosing the problem, designing the remedy and delivering the solution. Robust partnerships, based on realistic expectations, joint analysis and planning, and respect for the other partners, may allow us to move beyond minding the gap to finding ways to bridge it.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank CIGI Research Associate Simon Palamar for preparing the charts that appear in this chapter.

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Quinn, David, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Pelin Eralp, Victor Asal and Theodore McLauchlin. 2013. “Crisis Managers But Not Conflict Resolvers: Mediating Ethnic Interstate Conflict in Africa.” Conflict Management and Peace Studies 30 (4): 387–406. Rice, Susan E. and Stewart Patrick. 2008. Index of State Weakness in the Developing World. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Rotberg, Robert I., ed. 2003. State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press and the World Peace Forum. Saunders, Harold H. 2001. “Prenegotiation and Circum-negotiation.” In Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict, edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press. Themner, Lotta and Peter Wallensteen. 2014. “Armed Conflicts, 1946–2013.” Journal of Peace Research 51: 541–54. United Nations. 2015. “MINUSCA Mandate.” United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic. www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/ missions/minusca/mandate.shtml.

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Endnote 1

The list in 2015 is extensive: Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) in office since 1986; Paul Biya (Cameroon) since 1975; Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) since 1980; José Eduardo Dos Santos (Angola) since 1979; Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea) since 1979; Omar al-Bashir (Sudan) since 1989; Idriss Déby (Chad) since 1990; IsaiasAfewerki (Eritrea) since 1991; and Yahya Jammeh (The Gambia) since 1994.

MINDING THE GAP: AFRICAN CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN A TIME OF CHANGE

THE PREVAILING NARRATIVE ON AFRICA

African Conflict Management in a Time of Change

Published by the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Aall | Crocker

ISBN 978-1-928096-21-4

www.cigionline.org

9 781928 096214

Pamela Aall and Chester A. Crocker, Editors Foreword by the Right Honourable Joe Clark