1. Framework for Security Architecture in a Sub-Region in Transition:
Challenges and Prospects1
By
J. ’Kayode Fayemi, (kfayemi@cddnig.org)
Centre for Democracy & Development
Addressing Africa’s conflict and prospects for a security architecture requires
broadening notions of security and developing multi-faceted responses. Four
pillars of peace and security are central to this process:
1) Human security as a bedrock for peace;
2) Deepening democratic and open governance to prevent conflict and build
peace,
3) Transformation of violent conflicts through political processes, and;
4) Collective security for all African states.
PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES TO REGIONAL SECURITY
COOPERATION
• Legacy of Westphalian sovereignty
• Regionalism without common values
• Regional hegemony
• Regionalism as leaderism in which regional integration is only happening at
the level of leaders without permeating the consciousness of the people;
• Regionalism as formalism in which a wide array of institutions have been
created with little or no capacity to manage them
• Regionalism as an externally driven, not a people driven project
CONTEXT OF REGIONAL COOPERATION IN THE LATE 1980s
1
Being notes prepared for presentation at the African Centre for Strategic Studies’ Southern Africa
Sub-regional Seminar in Maputo, Mozambique on September 26 , 2002.
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2. Whilst regionalism is not new in Africa, a number of factors seem to have
promoted the virtues of regionalism amongst African leaders and peoples in the
late 1980s and early 1990s. The peculiar context of the 1990s definitely redefined
the nature of both politics and conflict. Triggered by both external and internal
factors, the crisis of hegemony and legitimacy of the average African state found
refuge in the attempt to seek a common response to the problems at home.
• Shifts in global and geo-political power relations, in particular the end of
the cold war and the retraction of the imperial security umbrella, allowed
former client regimes to be challenged in ways unimaginable in the past;
• The retreat of the superpowers placed greater prominence on the role of
and competition between regional powers in conflict and conflict
management;
• Conflict parties (both governments and rebel groups) previously
supported by superpowers had to turn to new sources of funding,
including the exploitation of natural resources and criminal activity
(drugs, etc) making them potentially less amenable to external pressure;
• New particularistic forms of political consciousness and identity, often
structured around religion and ethnicity, replaced the extant
‘universalistic’ debates between ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ that had
underpinned the Cold War, reinforcing the erosion of a sense of common
citizenship fostered by state contraction and popular disillusionment with
politics;
• Erosion of the institutional capacity of the average African state, the most
profound aspect of which was the decomposition of the security
apparatuses, affecting the ability of the state to ensure the security of the
state as well as that of the community.
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3. • African states were subjected to multiple sources of pressure that eroded
their sovereignty: from above, the cooption of crucial areas of policy
initiative by the IFIs and a variety of donor agencies: from below – the
activation of civil society and the increasing power and resources
controlled by the non-governmental sector
• Loss of centrality of the state as a consequence of contracting resources
and capacity to deliver essential services, with various implications for its
ability to act as the centre of social cohesion as well as for perceptions of
citizenship;
• State militarism, which became the progenitor of the psychology of
militarism, loss of a culture of dialogue, implanting a culture of violence,
and discouraging peaceful conflict-resolution and process of change.
• The increasing availability and privatisation of the instruments of
violence, transforming the military balance between state and society.
Massive retrenchment and growing surplus of military assets globally,
simultaneously with a breakdown in supply-side and demand side
controls on global arms markets and (locally) recycling of
decommissioned weaponry as most of the wars of the 1980s wound down.
• New forms of violent national and trans-national crime.
RECORD OF THE 1990s DECADE
• Varied state of democratic transition underscoring the importance of
democratising security to prevent conflict and build peace
• Values and norms of governance have become more prevalent in West
Africa
• While the economic situation remains fragile, overall economic
performance in Africa has actually improved marginally, relative to the
1980s
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4. • Regionalism has taken much firmer root, crowned recently by the launch
of the African Union and introduction of NEPAD
• Regional and sub-regional conflict management mechanisms put in place
as Africans strive to develop an autonomous capacity to handle their
conflicts in spite of the inherent challenges of regionalism (West Africa is
a pioneer in the field);
• In spite of some form of international assistance, Africans are
increasingly at the centre of the emerging geo-political realities – with
ACRI, RECAMP and other supporting initiatives acting as back up –
ANAD merger with ECOWAS on the security field is an indication; the
sense of an Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa seems to be
disappearing; equally the prevalent perception of a Franco-Nigerian
rivalry is beginning to disappear although there are still governments and
actors keen to promote these ‘divisions’. The evidence both in trade and
security terms seem to suggest otherwise.
• There is now a widespread acceptance of the need to re-conceptualise
‘security’ in a more responsive direction with a move away from the
traditional emphasis on national/state security to a focus on ‘human
security’, with an expansion, concomitantly in the cope of the concept
from its minimalist meaning (as in physical security) to include access to
the means of life, the provision of essential goods, a clean and sustainable
environment, as well as to human rights and democratic freedoms. A key
aspect of this is the increasing linkage drawn between security and
development, on the one hand rooting insecurity in conditions of
underdevelopment, and on the other, the recognition that security is an
essential precondition and component of development – as well as a
growing tendency to see defence and security as both a public policy and a
governance issue (thus broadening the range of constituencies that can
participate legitimately in this formally highly restricted arena.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BUILDING REGIONAL SECURITY
ARCHITECTURE IN AFRICA
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5. Whilst certain advances have been made in promoting and entrenching regional
security cooperation over the last decade, a number of hurdles clearly remain if
we are to move beyond elections. They include, but are not necessarily limited to
the following key elements:
• Subscription to and institutionalisation of core regional values and norms –
constitutionalism, promotion of rights based development, fundamental
freedoms, security as a public good etc;
• Promoting long term conditions for security and development through the
search for promoting livelihood and poverty reduction strategies;
• Adopting a peacebuilding approach to human security – reducing conflict by
promoting governmental and non-governmental approaches;
• Entrenching democratic governance of the security sector which establishes a
clear role definition for security services and enhances professionalism of the
sector;
• Promotion of values of accountability and transparency in governance;
• Building the capacity of African institutions for early warning, as well as
enhancing their capacity to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts;
• Strengthening developmental regionalism through regional mechanisms that
can help sustain democratic development and consolidation in response to the
rough edges of globalisation
• Establishing the parameters of genuine global partnership – Role
clarification between sub-regional bodies, African Union, United Nations etc.
Whilst it is difficult to be prescriptive about the framework for security
cooperation in Africa, it is gratifying to note that most of what I have stated in
my list above are fully reflected in the recent documents approved at the African
Union Summit in Durban, especially in relation to NEPAD and in the sub-
regional mechanism with which I am most familiar, ECOWAS.
The challenge is one of achieving and promoting the values of ownership,
participation, open and transparency accountability, fundamental freedoms and
the rule of law and implementation of agreed principles, rather than structures.
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6. As can be seen from the organisational translation of the ECOWAS Mechanism
for Conflict Prevention, Peacekeeping and Security in Figure 1, West Africa is
relatively advanced in its creation of structures and institutions in aid of regional
peace and security, than any other sub-region on the continent. Some of the
institutions are functioning, albeit with limited capacity and this progress is
based on the lessons learned from the limitations of ad-hocery in the ECOMOG
operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
CONCLUSION
Looking at West Africa, where a lot of advances have been made in the
promotion of regional norms and values, there is still a sense in which the feeling
of disillusionment is widespread with the current state of regional security
cooperation. Indeed, the unfortunate occurrence in Cote D’Ivoire reinforces the
impression in some circles that despotic peace may be better than democratic
freedom. It would be sad if this view were to gain widespread acceptance, but
the fact that the regional body is not quick off the mark in responding to the
Ivorien crisis underscores the need for a rapid deployment force that can act on
the side of humanitarian intervention and restoration of order. Although this is
provided for in the ECOWAS Mechanism, there are still questions of mandate,
political acceptance, composition, military capability and accountability to be
overcome.
What this clearly leads us to is the overriding importance of responsible politics
and responsive leadership in building regional security cooperation. Until we get
both, the best that can be hoped up remains hegemonic regionalism, which may
keep the peace, but hardly promotes fundamental values of ownership.
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