Texts and Reports
- Development Policy and the Armed Forces - Speeches and Issues Notes
Issues
Note
Sam
Ibok
Director
Peace and Security Department
African Union, Addis Ababa
I should like at
the outset, to express my appreciation and that of the African Union
to Director Arna Hartman and her colleagues at InWEnt, for involving
the African Union Commission and myself in this very timely initiative
on the theme "Development Policy and the Armed Forces". I
am particularly happy to return again to Berlin, after the last Policy
Forum that I attended here on the issue of Small Arms. We welcome the
fact that Germany does not only support initiatives on peace and security
around the world, but is also taking its own initiatives to sensitise
the international community on these issues and thereby, broaden and
deepen understanding around them. Such an approach is proving its potentials
in galvanising and mobilising international support for peace and security
initiatives especially in Africa where I live and work.
I shall preface
my brief presentation with a few assumptions and comments on the state
of play in the continent, especially, as it relates to the peace and
security agenda and the architecture that is being put in place to implement
that agenda.
As is now generally
well known, Africa had for sometime now, recognised the important and
intricate linkage that exists between peace, security and stability
on the one hand, and development and integration on the other. The recognition
and the policy shift that resulted there from, also enabled Africans
in the decade of the nineties to engage in a paradigm shift in their
responses to the many threats to the peace, security and stability of
the States continent.
That shift and
new thinking, entailed the strengthening and consolidating the link
between peace and development, as well as between the state and the
whole notion of human security. This evolution in thinking and policy
development on issues of peace and security was more than in anything
else, manifested in the establishment of the African Union and its institutions,
most especially, The AU Peace and Security Council.
The African Union
enjoys a continental advantage in the development of the requisite tools
for ensuring conflict management in Africa, as well as in the coordination
and preparations of peace plans for peace support operations on the
continent. However, in order to do this efficiently and effectively,
there has been a new realism within the AU, that even though it is difficult,
the AU must operate in partnership with its member states first and
foremost, it must also coordinate closely and cooperate more effectively
with the Organizations in the Regions, with the UN and other important
partners like the EU which by the way, has become the most important
collaborator with the AU in the area of peace keeping along with other
bilateral partners like the United States of America.
The AU peace and
security architecture is premised on the fact that the immediate priority
for Africa is to introduce measures to strengthen the continent's capacity
for conflict prevention and management, particularly in the area of
peace support operations. No one single factor has led to the haemorrhaging
of the continent's resources like conflicts. Governments are spending
an enormous amount of resources that could have been used for development,
on ensuring peace and security while non-state actors and rebel movements,
using Africa's renewable and non-renewable resources are destroying
the continent's capacity to develop. Clearly, given the expanding nature
of conflicts on the continent, preventive measures alone, have proved
to be inadequate. This situation led the AU to reassess its role and
involvement in all aspects of peace support operations in Africa. It
also revealed a fundamental problem that the Union lacked the requisite
capacity to respond in a comprehensive manner to security issues ranging
from failed states, gross violations of human rights, genocide, unconstitutional
take-over of governments, exploitation of the continent's renewable
and non-renewable resources, small arms trafficking and proliferation,
the phenomenon of child soldiers, demobilization, disarmament, resettlement
and reintegration (DDRR), security sector reforms, to the whole gamut
of post-conflict recovery. The list goes on and on.
As a result of
the continuing efforts of self evaluation, or soul searching if you
may, the AU has since its establishment, been involved in the review
of following critical areas as part of its agenda for crisis prevention
and peace support under African responsibility:
- articulating
the political will of its leaders and member states to develop effective
capacities for conflict prevention an management, including the development
of robust peace keeping capabilities, while at the same time, creating
a more propitious environment for ensuring the human security of its
people, economic development and the integration of the continent
in a more realistic manner;
- the full operationalization
and enhancement of AU's decision-making capacity, particularly, those
of the new Policy Organs, including the important Peace and Security
Council;
- identifying
the key tools and priorities for an effective and comprehensive conflict
management mechanism;
- identifying
and mobilizing the resources required to develop the requisite tools
and capabilities referred to above;
- enhancing the
AU capacity to analyse and understand the root causes and nature of
conflicts in Africa and developing strategic options to address them;
- developing
and sustaining AU's initiatives and ensuring that the Union remains
at the centre stage in the conception, planning and the operationalization
of peace support operations in Africa.
While it may be
too early to undertake any realistic assessment of AU and the impact
of this new paradigm shift on the state of peace and security on the
continent, it could be surmised that the emerging advantages of this
improved policy environment include:
- increased institutional
synergy among the various Institutions for decision making and the
implementation of peace support operations in Africa;
- increased synergy,
coordination and cooperation between the AU, the conflict management
mechanisms established by the Regional Economic Communities like ECOWAS,
SADC, IGAD etc and the activities of the UN;
- increased institutional
linkages between the AU, Regional Organizations such as those mentioned
above, African civil society Organizations and the United Nations
and its Agencies;
- enhanced capacity
to deploy short and medium term preventive peace support operations
to theatres of conflict as the AU did in Burundi and currently in
Darfur and to effectively backstop such operations with the requisite
resources including logistics, transport, command and control;
- enhanced short
and medium term capacity to deploy and lead regional peace keeping
operations like ECOWAS did in Liberia and Sierra Leone;
- developing
the capacity to prepare African forces for peace keeping duties as
envisaged under the framework of the African Standby Force;
- engaging in
confidence building deployments, pending the deployment of UN peace
keeping forces. Such deployments would seek to create an enabling
environment, conducive for the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces.
The AU recently
established a Common African Defence and Security Policy aimed at promoting
a spirit of collective defence and a culture of peace, as well as enhancing
peace-building, peace-keeping and post-conflict recovery, reconstruction
and rehabilitation in Africa, especially, in conflict-ridden parts of
the continent. The establishment of the Policy also signified Africa's
common will to strengthen its collective efforts to contribute to peace,
stability, justice and development in Africa, as well as to intensify
cooperation and integration in the continent, in the best interest of
the peoples of the continent.
The implementation
of this policy will fall on the Peace and Security Council of the AU,
which will be advised by a Panel of the Wise and supported by the African
Standby Force, as the mechanism for implementing and if the need arises,
enforcing its decisions. Specifically, the African Standby Force will
conduct Peace Support Operations on the continent (which is why it is
going to be made up of Regional Brigades), without prejudice to the
fact that the ultimate responsibility for global peace and security
rests with the UN Security Council.
Since I have been
requested to focus my presentation on how Africans can assume more responsibility
for peacekeeping and development in the continent, let me conclude my
brief presentation by stating the following:
1. Africa is willing
and ready to assume greater responsibility for peace keeping in the
continent. However, it lacks the means to do so in an effective and
efficient manner. It will require the building of partnerships as envisaged
by NEPAD and the G8 to develop the requisite capacities for peace and
development;
2. The greatest
impediment to developing African peace keeping capacities, as our experiences
in Burundi and currently, in Darfur, have clearly shown, relates to
incapacity in the areas of logistics and funding for sustainability.
So far, none of the existing external initiatives on Africa, addresses
these problems, as requested for by African Chiefs of Defence staff
and Ministers of Defence;
3. We need to expand
and focus on the concept and principle of burden sharing, through imaginative
initiatives such as exploring how Regional Organizations like the AU
can, in concrete terms, benefit form the provisions of Chapter VIII
of the UN Charter, especially, when they act on behalf of the UN;
4. Support for
the emerging peace and security architecture in Africa, which provides
per three levels of intervention:
a) the refusal and intervention of ECOWAS in Liberia and Sierra Leone
b) the continental level by the AU
c) the global level by the UN Security Council.
In all of there coordination, harmonization and consultation is critical.
5. Bridging the
gaps between the three levels of intervention, particularly in the areas
of coordination, we need to work towards greater complementarily of
efforts and initiatives, to avoid duplication and competition that could
undermine those efforts and initiatives;
6. Ensuring that
we work on the basis of division of labour and the principle of comparative
advantage, where for instance, we can rely on the he expertise of the
UN in issues such as peace-building, post-conflict reconstruction, peace-making
and peacekeeping. There are great potentials for Organizations such
as the AU to relieve the UN of many of these burdens and create the
possibilities for better competencies.
Finally, I should
like to state that we are greatly encouraged by the decision of the
European Union to establish a Peace Support Operations Facility for
Africa. That initiative has not only brought together the whole concept
of development and peace, but is today, the most imaginative and useful
initiative that has, in practical terms, led to the AU taking big steps
to implement its decisions. Whereas in the past, most people kept talking
about if at meetings and media events, the EU has practically taken
the steps necessary to support Africans to achieve an important goal.
There are still a few lingering problems though and we are hoping that
with greater, more open and transparent dialogue, we shall overcome
the remaining or lingering problems.
It is our wish
that conferences such as these, will keep us resolve these problems.
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