1. The Peace and Security Challenges Facing Africa: Can the African
Union and NEPAD meet them effectively?
By
J. ‘Kayode Fayemi
For most people today, a feeling of insecurity arises more from worries about
the daily life than from the dread of a cataclysmic world event. Job security,
income security, health security, environmental security, security from crime,
these are the emerging concerns of human security all over the world.
UNDP, Human Development Report,
1994
I have been asked to make my intervention on the peace and security clusters of the
NEPAD document, focusing on the operational challenges and prospects for its
realisation. I would like to start by prefacing my presentation with a general comment.
There are many reasons why Africans should be enthusiastic about NEPAD’s wide-
ranging vision for promoting good governance, conflict prevention, fair trade, debt
repayment, and poverty reduction. However, it is also important to question the neo-
liberal orthodoxy that has informed NEPAD whilst arguing for its grounding in historical
context. My presentation therefore examines the peace and security cluster of NEPAD
within the framework of the entire NEPAD Strategy document, highlight what I consider
to be good aspects of the cluster, providing a critical perspective of its overarching order
whilst emphasising the need for African ownership of the process and products of
NEPAD, especially in the context of a newly established African Union (AU). In this
context, my own view is that the official promoters of NEPAD must recognise the need
for genuine partnership with the African people if the vision is to be translated into
concrete initiatives, since the people have so far played little or no part in NEPAD’s
conception, design and formulation so far.
Whilst the original NEPAD document released after the October 2001 meeting of
its Heads of State Implementation Committee (HSIC) in Abuja recognised the centrality
of peace and security to Africa’s development agenda. By also stressing the importance
of governance to the development and security agenda, the NEPAD document also
attempts a holistic understanding of the linkage between governance, security and
development. Yet a deeper reading of the four key areas for policy intervention in the
document - a) Development of early warning systems; (b) Post conflict reconstruction
and development, including disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation; c) Action to
curb the illicit proliferation, circulation and trafficking of small arms and light weapons
on the continent and d) promotion of peace support operations - reveals this link to be
tenuous and superficial with very little attention paid to a holistic peace building and
human security approach to development. The March 2002 meeting of the HSIC
developed this cluster in a more comprehensive manner by adding four key aspects -
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2. namely, 1) Support efforts to promote democracy, good governance and respect for
human rights through appropriate policy and institutional reforms; (2) Enhance capacity
to conduct thorough inclusive strategic assessments of situations in regions affected by
conflict, (3) Resource mobilisation for the African Union Peace Fund and finally, the
HSIC summit also pushed for the ratification of the OAU Convention on Combating
Terrorism as a means of addressing the regional dimension of this problem.
The March 2002 meeting also addressed another critical cog in the wheel of
operationalising the peace and security cluster by acknowledging the unclear relationship
between NEPAD and the OAU Secretariat, especially the Conflict Management Centre
charged with the responsibilities for operationalising the Mechanism for Conflict
Prevention, Management and Resolution as well as the relationship between the peace
and security clusters of NEPAD and the security and stability calabashes of the
Conference on Security, Stability Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA),
already incorporated into the OAU since its adoption at the Lome Summit of 1999. Also
the relationship between Regional Economic Communities (RECS) and NEPAD in the
promotion of peace and security also received some attention at the March meeting. I
should state at this point that extensive work has been done on the NEPAD document and
the revised Central Organ document of the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention,
Management and Resolution by a Committee of OAU Ambassadors with a group of
experts leading to the recommendation to consolidate both aspects into the work of a new
organ of the African Union to be known as the Peace and Security Council.
In my view, the most critical addition to the list of priority areas by the HSIC at
their March 2002 meeting were those underscoring the need to promote democracy, good
governance and respect for human rights through appropriate policy and institutional
reforms. Although this was an assumption that runs through the entire NEPAD document,
stating it explicitly as a priority area elaborates on the purpose, object, and the
mechanisms for the attainment of security and peace and moves the peace and security
cluster away from the traditional, military and state-centric focus of the original priority
areas. Democratising security to prevent conflict and build peace also captures the very
essence of human security and effectively links human security to human development by
underscoring the fact that both require democratic governance in order to attain peace.
This recognition 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 in the scope of the concept from its narrow meaning
of (physical security) to include access to the means of life, the provision of essential
goods, a clean and sustainable environment as well as human rights and democratic
freedoms is clearly commendable.
Indeed, 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 the tendency to see defence and security as both a public policy and governance
issue (thus broadening the range of communities and constituencies that can participate in
this formerly restricted area) ought to be welcome by all those following these debates by
African leaders in their quest to promote NEPAD. Yet, while it is now accepted that
efforts to address Africa’s violent conflicts must be linked to wider democratisation and
sustained development efforts, the challenge remains how to translate this new
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3. understanding into specific policies and how to ensure effective implementation of these
policies through the promotion of the core values contained in them. This is even more so
within the context of a New Partnership for Africa’s Development that is keen to promote
certain core values at a time that these values are common to all countries and all peoples
in the same degree.
The critical question therefore is to what extent is there a common perception of
security in Africa and is this common perception articulated and universally shared? If it
is, is it possible to identify the underlying consensus and the common value systems in
them. A cursory glance points to continuing tension between a ‘national security’ - nation
building approach and a ‘human security’ - peace building approach, yet there need not
be a Manichean divide between the two. Yet, when a country goes for one approach or
the other, the values promoted are dissimilar. It is therefore important to understand the
causes and nature of conflicts in Africa in order to know the values of security to be
promoted on a regional, national and local basis.
Understanding the Causes, Nature and Context of Conflict in Africa
To understand the causes and nature of violent conflict, perhaps the most important task
is to examine in a more nuanced manner the historic roots and contemporary trajectories
of Africa’s violent conflicts and to move away from simplistic interpretation of causes
based on notions such as ‘greed’, ‘poverty’, or ‘ethnicity’. Africa’s conflicts share a
common backdrop of economic stagnation and faltering democratic rule that undermined
state capacity and legitimacy in the 1980s. Yet each conflict has followed its own
trajectory shaped by political and policy choices partly made by African governments and
partly imposed by the international context. Among the most critical elements in
understanding the new conflict equation arising out of the 1990s political transition on
the continent are:
• The shifts in global and geopolitical power relations; in particular the end of the cold
war and the withdrawal of the metropolitan security umbrella which paved the way
for serious challenges to some client regimes in a manner previously considered
impossible.
• With the demise of universalistic ideological battle between socialism and capitalism,
new forms of conflict emerged in the form of identity issues anchored on religion and
ethnicity in particular.
• The withdrawal of assistance by big states also resulted in the search for new forms of
sustenance leading to the exploitation of resources and criminal activity;
• Increasing availability and privatisation of instruments of violence, transforming the
military balance between the state and society.(A recent survey indicates that the
permanent members of the Security Council were together responsible for 81% of
world arms exports from 1996 - 2000. The G8 nations sold 87% of total arms exports
to the entire world. US’ share of that is over 50 per cent and 68% of arms supplied to
the developing world comes from the United States.)
• New forms of violent and trans-national crime (Hutchful 2001).
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4. Yet in this context of internal cleavages and external fuelling of conflicts, one could
almost reach the flawed conclusion that the 1980s was a period of unbridled peace. The
truth is however more complex that this. Examined critically, the most important lesson
of the 1990s conflict in Africa is that the 1980s laid a solid basis for them through the
severe economic and fiscal compression exemplified by the structural adjustment shocks
of the period. It is no longer in doubt that the erosion of social capital, political legitimacy
and institutional weakening of many African states can be directly linked to the policy
choices that informed governance during this period:
• Decomposition of the security sector was a key component of this state collapse.
• Equally, the State lost its central relevance due to the SAP’s agenda to retrench it
from basic services’ provision to the citizens;
• State militarism largely driven by the authoritarian culture which was so widespread
in the 1980s laid the basis for the new and more deadly societal militarism
represented by the warlords of the 1990s and the violent nature of crime
In short, the nature of conflict and politics in Africa was in essence redefined by the
peculiar context of the 1990s and the nature of partnership between Africa and its
development partners. Addressing violent conflicts in Africa therefore requires
broadening the notions of security and developing multi-faceted responses. Four pillars of
peace and security ought to form the core of this agenda: 1) human security as the
bedrock for peace; 2) democracy and open governance; 3) transformation of violent
conflicts through political processes; and 4) collective security for all African states.
At the heart of this conflict prevention agenda is the transformation of Africa’s
security establishments. Until recently, the mantra among donors is to emphasise cost-
cutting approach to dealing with security sector problems. However, the solutions
required are first and foremost political in nature and this relates essentially to the
deepening of democracy on the continent. To achieve this political consensus,
governance in the security sector which treats security actors as stakeholders in processes
of democratisation and administrative reform is central, both in terms of long term
containment of conflict and in terms of democratic consolidation. The appropriate
framework for achieving governance in the security sector is human security. Yet, if
conflict provides the framework, regionalism is the basic institutional scaffolding that
Africans should pay particular attention to since the gains of a human security approach
are best realised within a regional context, hence the importance of NEPAD in the
context of the new African Union.
Although regionalism has taken a much firmer root in Africa, crowned recently
by the launch of NEPAD, regionalism still faces a critical problem of entrenchment in a
region where efforts to build homogenous nation-states on the basis of artificially
constructed boundaries have resulted in forced unity through the promotion of the
principle of “non-interference”. Since sovereignty of the nation-state is regarded as
sacrosanct and inviolable, states that have ceased to function as states in the traditional
sense of providing basic needs for the citizens still enjoy support and assistance in
development circles even when it is known that these states are nothing but privatised
entities. Even when regional and sub-regional mechanisms put in place by Africans have
developed autonomous capacity to handle local conflicts in spite of the inherent
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5. challenges of regionalism, the critical issue for NEPAD remains how best to address the
legacy of the Westphalia logic of sovereignty as well as moving away from the
regionalism of leaders in which regional integration is only recognised as happening at
the level of leaders with scant regard paid to the rising regional consciousness at the level
of the citizens and addressing the regionalism of institutions in which several institutions
are created, primarily ion name only with little or no capacity to manage them. It is only
when regionalism is taken seriously as a response to globalisation that Africans can
define a new relationship with the International community.
The institutional and operational suggestions above will only have meaning if it
permeates the realities of the ordinary citizens. Although NEPAD acknowledges the fact
that poor people rate insecurity as a key cause of poverty, it seems clear that the evidence
for seeing poverty as a cause of armed conflict is generally weak in Africa. The most
poverty stricken parts of the continent are clearly not the most conflict ridden. Yet, while
it is true that inequality or relative deprivation rather than poverty as in absolute
deprivation is more to blame for conflict, it is important to take a far more complex view
of the causes of conflict in their economic, political, environmental and cultural
dimensions.
Clearly, poverty - as exemplified by the inequality arising out of unfair sharing of
global opportunities - remains the greatest threat to security and democratic consolidation
in Africa today and, at the broadest level, globalisation is resulting in deep polarisation
between rich and poor throughout the continent. Whereas quantitative accounts of the
problems do not always tell the whole story, even the available statistics for the African
continent paint a gory picture - especially in terms of the impact of conflict on poverty on
the continent.
Acknowledging the fact that an exclusive focus on the nation state has prevented
an understanding of regional specific determinants in the poverty-security-development
complex might help NEPAD promoters to address some of the policy issues and
possibilities that can make a difference. Having secured an understanding of the nature
and context of conflict on the continent, what are the prospects for addressing the
challenges and what should NEPAD leaders and actors do?
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6. Prospects for addressing current challenges?
For a start, as we move towards the G8 summit in Canada and the first African Union
summit in Durban, South Africa, it is important to acknowledge that Africa’s violent
conflicts and security problems can only be resolved through genuine global partnership.
The 1980s were a testament to the dangers of ‘broad brush’ approaches, characterised by
the external imposition of macro-economic stabilisation and structural adjustment
programmes that were sufficiently inflexible to account for the diversity of circumstances
and need. Developing more ‘home grown’ approaches will require donors to relinquish
greater responsibility to Africa’s leaders and their people. Given the different trajectories
that we have seen on the continent, it is important to develop a typology of African states
in the post cold war transitions decade in order to avoid the broad-brush strategies that
did not work in the 1980s. It is possible to identify in this context at least five categories
of African states ranging from progress to stasis, and in a few cases reversal, and
requiring different responses from development partners. It is possible to talk of 1)
Consolidating states - South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Senegal, Benin; 2) Semi, Virtual
or proforma democracies in transition - Nigeria, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire; 3)
States in Conflict or emerging out of conflict - Sierra Leone, DRC, Liberia, Eritrea,
Rwanda, Burundi; 4) States in relapse or remilitarisation - Zimbabwe, Togo, Guinea
Bissau, Madagascar and; 5) Authoritarian States or States that have collapsed - Somalia. I
have identified issues that are common to all the states in question below and why it is
important to respond to them differently, even if they are treated in a continuum.
Ultimately, my argument is that given the “glocal” nature of the conflicts afflicting many
of the states, state rebuilding can only be reinforced in the context of regional integration
supported by global partnership. Equally, by arguing for an adoption of a peacebuilding
approach to national security, this should result in an assessment of each country’s
security environment with a view to evaluating the structures, roles and missions of the
different security forces.
Support for peace building and reconstruction: State rebuilding after state collapse often
requires a strong support for peace building and reconstruction measures. Peace in this
context has often been interpreted as mere absence of war and state rebuilding is often
seen only in terms of physical reconstruction. While physical reconstruction may be a
necessary departure point for state rebuilding, the defining characteristic of state
rebuilding from a human security approach is the presence of holistic security and a
model of conflict management, which emphasises the fundamentals of military security,
democratisation and consensus building, development, economic reform, human rights
and human dignity for the citizens to engage their rulers.
Therefore, although the conventional wisdom is to ignore it, the security required
in the immediate aftermath of conflict might also require higher rather than lower
security expenditure to enable the state and citizens cope with the impact of conflict -
rehabilitating refugees and the internally displaced, providing for a secure, safe and
enabling environment in which development initiatives can succeed and reintegrating
former combatants into society and economy. In situations where conditions of poverty
prevail after post war conflict, it is reasonable to predict a correlation between the lack of
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7. development opportunities in terms of direct income generation to survivors and an
increase in criminality and conflict.
For policy makers, especially international donors who just want to “move the
money” because of the domestic pressure from disaster management and relief agencies,
there is always the pressing need to construe their role in terms of immediate restoration
of peace and stability, rather than security and development through the promotion of
common values and the rule of law. The concentration on elections and elections
monitoring in say Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria in recent times gave an impression
that what mattered most was the election, not democracy nor a recognition that elections
are not enough to guarantee democracy and development. Experience has since shown
that while there are immediate tasks that must be addressed in terms of peace building
and reconstruction in every conflict situation - disaster relief and management,
repatriation and reintegration of refugees and reduction in the proliferation of small arms
and clearance of explosives, these are not the most successful ingredients of a successful
peace building strategy.
To promote sustainable security and peace building strategies therefore - African
leaders and international development agencies must take a comprehensive look at peace
building and reconstruction strategies treating them as a continuum with short term (relief
and emergency aid and creating a secure and enabling environment); medium term (peace
support operations) and long term (reconstruction, democracy & development)
components in an integrated manner. Donor countries should be encouraged to foster
greater coherence amongst their own policies at an inter-agency level, as well as within
their own regional structures (such as EU, OECD, etc). A good example as we pointed
out in the preceding section is the fact that arms sales from developed countries is often at
variance with the emphasis the same countries place on conflict prevention and security
sector governance.
Equally, in this respect, there is a need for stronger cooperation between the
Bretton Woods institutions, the UN Systems and other multi and bi-lateral development
agencies as well as independent development institutions to reduce the overzealous focus
on achieving fiscal discipline and macro-economic stability at the expense of efforts to
protect social spending. Donor responses have often involved conditionalities relating to
automatic decreases in military spending and reductions of military and other security
forces with no attention paid to the expensive nature of security and the objective security
threats that each country faces. Especially in post conflict situations, this realization
should inform international attitudes towards security sector transformation on the one
hand, and post conflict reconstruction on the other.
Third, it is extremely important that international institutions should seize the
momentum provided by the weak capacity of the state to align external assistance with
local needs and efforts, not an opportunity to impose received wisdom and new theories
of development. This is extremely important in the context of recent claims that NEPAD
is Africa owned - a claim that is rejected by many Africans. Where state institutional
capacity is weak, an immense burden of responsibility is placed on IFIs and development
agencies in which real dialogue with the people and wide consultations underscore
whatever actions are taken. Finally, international donors cannot ignore the international
context in their response to peace building and reconstruction efforts. How, for example,
has the often convoluted linkage between trans-national corporations, proliferation of
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8. arms and promotion of neo-liberal globalising trends by the industrial world undermine
the success of security and development reforms in countries emerging out of conflict,
especially within the context of an unstable region in which domino effect is real rather
than imagined.
These are some of the issues that are central to any discussion of the policy lever
on peace building and reconstruction efforts and the extent to which the guideline
document considers them critically would determine the possibilities of success that
might accompany critical intervention.
The Challenge of strengthening the territorial state: As has been argued above, this
thinking itself is a product of the state-centric notions of security that dominated
traditional thinking in the cold war era. Since the state is increasingly seen as
unrepresentative and illegitimate in Africa however, are there conditions under which war
might be seen to be a legitimate means of removing regime types that promote conflicts
and in which leaders have encroached upon common pool resources. To this end, some
questions might suffice in any consideration of complex political situations rather than
focus exclusively on state monopoly of means of coercion. This is not to suggest that
states do not have legitimate needs for security which might necessitate legitimate
procurement and monopoly of means of coercion, but this has to be demonstrated to
ensure that security is treated as common public good, not just regime good. It may
therefore be necessary to consider:
• Under which circumstances, if any, is war necessary to remove bad governments?
That is how do we distinguish between justifiable rebellion and needless conflict?
• How is regional economic and political co-operation built between and among
states to address the pathology of militarism?
• How can state-centric definitions of security be de-emphasised, and the role of
civil society in peace building increased in the quest for common values?
• How is democratic control of the military to be built in states undergoing political
transition or moving from war to peace - through parliamentary oversight,
effective institutions of governance and genuine interaction between the military
and the rest of society?
Acknowledging the need to ask these questions should help to address some of the policy
challenges posed for conflict transformation and security sector reform within the
NEPAD context and subject state monopoly of violence to international and regional
checks. Although there is evidence to suggest that African leaders and their international
partners now accept the argument about broadening the agenda, but the commitment to
the mutually reinforcing interaction between the values of democracy, equity and
sustainability still remain subordinate to the core need for macro-economic stability and
integration into the international political economy in the NEPAD document. This is why
many are still suspicious of the African leaders and their development partners’
commitment to a human security approach in spite of the new rhetoric about local
ownership and social capital.
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9. Promoting social coherence through civil society development and multi-cultural
tolerance
If peace-building is taken as the sum total of activities that will support peace making and
conflict transformation: demobilisation, re-structuring of the local security system -
police and the military; resettlement of refugees and the internally displaced persons;
removal of dangerous weapons - mines and other unexploded firearms, reconstruction of
shattered infrastructure and humanitarian and disaster relief - very few still advocate that
this could be done with the exclusion of civil society. Indeed, even African leaders and
international development agencies now see civil society as key to the successful
implementation of these various aspects of post-conflict peace building process. In
discussing rights based approach to governance and security sector transformation, local
ownership and development of social capital rests with the civil society, but it is
important to place this within the context of developing institutional mechanisms for the
management of diversity and difference and incorporating international human rights
framework into domestic law. Hence, the rights of the people to their resources should
not be compromised at the altar of encouraging foreign direct investment, especially
where this undermines environmental security.
Since states are usually products of war and rampage, it might sound far-fetched
to base the quest for tolerance on the notion of reclaiming the militarised mind through
the creation of structures capable of mediating conflict between belligerent parties.
Perhaps, an explanation of this construction is necessary here. It is suggested that the
military option now prevalent in several parts of the African continent is the inevitable
consequence of the acute nature of internal contradictions and the almost total absence of
democratic institutions that can assist in the management of deep-rooted conflicts.
It was assumed in policy and development circles that support for neo-liberal
democracy will help achieve this objective, hence there was the enthusiasm for
democracy assistance and ‘good governance’ in the early 1990s and donor countries
made some efforts to move economic assistance away from former concerns about
stimulating economic growth to an emphasis on political objectives, including support for
processes of democratisation and building of civil society.
Although the above represented a shift from the days of the super-power
ideological rivalry, even this shift in the leadership’s thinking and IFIs’ assistance has
concentrated primarily on the reform of the public sector and involvement of the ‘civil
society’ to the extent that it promotes the neo-liberal paradigm, not on an alternative
vision of bottom-up reforms driven by societal consensus. The fact that many of the
transitions of the last decade in Africa now approximate to - at best electoral democracies
and at worst elected dictatorships, has raised new questions on how to deepen the
democratic content of current reforms in a process oriented, participatory and accountable
manner. At every level, the idea of constitutionalising democratising polities that have
largely functioned as ‘virtual’ democracies along multifaceted lines is taking shape.
Today, the fact that the struggle for reconstituting the African state is taking place
in no fewer than twenty African states in Angola, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cote
d’Ivoire, Swaziland and Lesotho, to mention but a few, underscores a paradigmatic shift
from constitutionality to constitutionalism, a situation where constitutions are now seen
as tools for building bridges between the state and civil society, a social compact based
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10. upon a foundation of consensus among the constituent elements within the polity and
between them and the state in the quest for common value systems. What has to be
emphasised however for the purpose of NEPAD and human security is the importance of
an organic link between the constitution as a rule of law instrument incorporating
international human rights framework and primarily concerned with restraining
government excesses, and the constitution as a legitimisation of power structures and
relations based on a broad social consensus and the values in diverse societies. In short, if
NEPAD is to promote the mutually reinforcing role of development, security and
democracy, the task today is largely between bridging the gap between “juristic
constitutionalism” and “political and socio-economic constitutionalism” in the search for
common core values if the ‘New Africa’ espoused in the NEPAD document is to have
meaning and be accountable to its citizens.
The core issues around values in NEPAD can only be addressed in the context of
principles and values to which all Africans willingly subscribe. Values of representation,
ownership, accessibility to all levels of government, accountability, openness and
collective responsibility. CSSDCA has been doing a lot of work on developing a
consensus driven value systems which is what would be the subject of the peer review
mechanism. NEPAD is also developing a similar mechanism in preparation for the
Durban summit of the African Union. While this is welcome by all, the scepticism that
has attended the search for common values to be promoted across Africa has been
informed by the anti-democratic and reprehensible behaviour of some of the leaders who
are at the forefront of the NEPAD campaign and their total contempt for some of the
supposed values to which they have committed themselves. In spite of this general
scepticism, constitutionalism as a social compact remains the best route for forging the
kind of value system and reorientation that can deepen our democracy in order to prevent
conflict and build peace.
Building assets that provide security against disasters and economic shocks
Conventionally, the way most development agencies have promoted the building of
assets against disasters and economic shocks has been to focus on macro-economic
stability strategies like Structural adjustment reforms, electoral democracies and support
of measures that seek to provide the enabling environment for foreign direct investment
and the global integration of the economy - a mutual pursuit of political and economic
liberalisation. This is the fundamental principle guiding the NEPAD document. So far,
the logic of trickle down economics has failed to produce an integrated world economy in
which all zones are winners. Indeed, as Caroline Thomas and Peter Wilkin argue,
In the process of globalisation, the continent (Africa) has quite literally been left
behind in terms of the distribution of the spoils of the process. The promised
advantages of economic restructuring, as hailed by the IMF, World Bank and
individual developed countries, have not been borne out. Foreign investment fails
to flow in; debt burdens continue; commodity prices fluctuate; environmental
degradation proceeds…and industrialisation fails to occur. (Thomas & Wilkin:
1998).
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11. This clearly contradicts the core assumption of globalisation that wealth would
automatically be created when the free market gains universal acceptance in the world.
By arguing that the way to build assets against shocks is not via the creation of local self
sufficiency, but national economies should concentrate on what they can contribute to the
world economy, globalisation ignores the comparative advantage of the North, locks
African states further into relative powerlessness by creating conditions for conflict
which further weakens the mediatory role of the states. Instead, it empowers those elites
within the state who can form part of the convoluted network in business and government
capable of acting independently of the juridical state. The fallout of this globalising trend
is the unregulated trade in mineral resources, proliferation of arms and narcotics and the
illicit trade in narcotics all of which ultimately undermine food security, environmental
security and the security of the individual - all factors responsible for conflict today. It
has also helped in deepening the rural-urban divide, fostered inter-generational strife
occasioned by youth frustration and exacerbated the scourge of refugees and the
internally displaced, all of which have moved the hapless below the poverty line and
moved them closer to violence and conflict.
In my view therefore, the greatest assets against shocks and disasters ultimately
lie with the development of human resources, better management of natural resource
endowment and respect for local ownership of the reform agenda whether in determining
the role of the State or in arriving at the most effective poverty inducing mechanisms. In
fairness, the NEPAD document pays some attention to this, but only within the context of
free and unregulated market. Hence, it is also useful to examine and analyse individual
situations on their merit, rather than assume that the market is God. This is of course not
to suggest that market has no role in reforming states structures. It is to say that there are
no universal models of the market as providing the best assets against shocks and
disasters, hence leaders and donor agencies must learn from their own experiences of the
market, security and public sector reforms in formulating realistic policies that are not
driven by dogma, even as they admit that certain assumptions undergird their work based
on their stated values and principles.
Conclusion: In pursuit of human security and human development in Africa
There is definitely a sense in which a deep feeling of disillusionment that is widespread
in Africa with the current democratisation and development agenda threatens to
undermine the whole campaign that NEPAD has generated. Indeed, many feel that the
hype is more than what the eventual product offers. Hence, one can see a major
opposition to the current slow pace of democratic and economic development. Indeed,
deepening democratic development remains an uphill task in several African countries,
especially in the aftermath of the global shock occasioned by the 9/11 tragedy in
America. There are indications that even the enthusiasm that greeted the NEPAD
initiative in the G8 countries has been enveloped in another global shift which is now in
favour of despotic peace in place of democratic, even if unsettling, freedom. The greatest
challenge of course is to understand that despite the frustrations and impatience of the
people with this democratic deficit, there is some realisation that transitions are
inherently unstable and unpredictable.
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12. It is our hope that the leaders meeting in Kananaskis, Canada this June and in
Durban next month will bear the above in mind as they prepare the Action Plan for this
much needed partnership for Africa’s Development - one that secures the world and
promote peace. Based on the above comments, a number of measures seem to suggest
themselves to us about how best to take the NEPAD Peace and Security clusters forward
in the context of the new African Union, especially in developing a human security
approach that promotes human development:
• There is an urgent need for clarification of values and norms subscribed to by
Africans and adopted in a widespread manner by the citizens. (ECOWAS
Supplementary Protocol on Democracy & Good Governance adopted by the
Heads of Government in Dakar in December 2001 is a good example here)
• There is a need for conceptual clarity through a comprehensive approach to
security sector reform in policy and development circles - one that recognises that
while there is no teleological link between elections and democracy, deepening
democracy offers the best chance of preventing violent conflict and building
durable peace
• There is a need to recognise the challenge of strengthening regional integration
and promote regional mechanisms that can help sustain democratic development
and consolidation through the adoption of a regional approach to conflict
prevention;
• Policy instruments must recognise the need to reconcile economic and social
development and enhance the input of non-state actors - in policy formulation to
enhance social capital rather than entrench the leverage of IFIs and donor
agencies on States;
• Recognition of legitimate security needs of nation-states must be factored into the
human security approach through the promotion of governmental and non-
governmental peace-building strategies
• Policy instruments must problematise the link between globalisation and conflict,
rather than assume that it is always going to be positive in the promotion of pro-
poor growth in the search for and implementation of sustainable livelihood and
poverty reduction strategies;
• Policy instruments must locate the security agenda within the democracy and
development framework and reflect the link between politics and economics, and
between security and opportunities;
• There is the need for democratic governance, not just civilian control of military
and security establishments in democratising polities;
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13. • Human security approach is a process, whose results will not necessarily be
immediate, hence the need for a long term view by interested stakeholders and
anti-poverty strategists.
REFERENCES
Buzan, B. et al. 1998. Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Boulder, Colorado:
Lynne Rienner.
CODEP, 2000. Report on the outcomes of the consultation on globalisation and conflict
for the White Paper on International Development: Globalisation & Development.
London, June 2000.
DFID, 2000. Security Sector Reform and the Management of Military Expenditure: Risks
for Donors, High Returns for Development, Report on an International Symposium,
February 14-16, 2000.
Fayemi, J.K. 2000. “Security Challenges in Africa”, Seminar: Indian Journal of Opinion,
Special Issue on African Transitions 490, June 2000.
Hutchful, E. 2001. Contribution to the ALF Project on Security and Demilitarisation in
Africa. Mimeo. December 2001.
Martin, B. 2000. New Leaf or Fig Leaf? The Challenge of the New Washington
Consensus. Report prepared for Bretton Woods Project and Public Service
International.
NEPAD Strategy Document - www.mapstrategy.org; www.nepad.org.za
Thomas, C. & P. Wilkin (eds.) 1998. Globalisation, Human Security & the African
Experience, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner.
UNDP, Human Development Report 1994.
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