Focus on Africa: Security in West Africa
Dr Andrew E. Yaw Tchie discusses recent peace and security developments in West Africa (from min. 32:08).
Waging Peace, towards an Africa Union Stabilisation Strategy for Somalia
Over the last few years, successful military operations across Somalia have helped to unshackle towns south of Mogadishu from al Shabaab, demonstrating the capacity of the African Union Mission to Somalia (amisom) to achieve parts of its mandate. However, friction between the Federal Government of Somalia and the Federal Member States have heightened tensions and rifts over elections, state management and overall security, despite significant international support. Despite amisom s efforts, the legacies of the 1990s civil war have remained unresolved, and state restoration has been disrupted by political, clannish, environmental and structural challenges. In contrast, al Shabaab remains adaptable, resilient and exploits grievances, local dynamics, and competition over resources. This paper argues, the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council needs to re-mandate and reinforce amisom in conjunction with an AU stabilisation strategy for Somalia which exploits experiences from the AU’s Regional Stabilisation Strategy for the Lake Chad Basin.
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Somalia
Somalia is experiencing its worst drought in over four decades. More frequent and intense floods and droughts fuel competition over natural resources, exacerbating community tensions and vulnerabilities. In combination with decades of conflict and instability, climate change poses a serious challenge to peace and security.
Climate, Peace and Security in Somalia
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Somalia
EPON Seminar on Examining the Effectiveness of a New Generation of African Peace Operations
No clear exit for SAMIM in Mozambique
The SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) has been extended multiple times, and violence continues to affect the northern regions of the country in spite of the presence of thousands of troops, with no clear exit for SAMIM in sight. These were some of the findings of a recent seminar entitled Examining the Effectiveness of a New Generation of African Peace Operations, hosted by the Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa (SIGLA), the Effectiveness of Peace Operations Network (EPON) and the Training for Peace (TfP) Programme.
Ad-hoc Security Initiatives, an African response to insecurity
This article contends that Ad-hoc Security Initiatives (ASI) have developed over the last decade in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin and represents a new form of African collective security mechanism. The G5 Sahel Force and the Multi-National Joint Task Force emerged from a context-specific need for small clusters of African states to respond collectively to a shared cross-border security threat(s). The existing African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) mechanisms were not specific and responsive enough to meet this emerging need. Despite substantial investments over the last twenty years by the African Union, Regional Economic Community/ Regional Mechanisms and international partners to establish the African Standby Force, this instrument was not agile enough to respond to the type of threats experienced in the greater Sahel region. In this article, we trace the emergence of a new type of ASI, examine how they fill an essential gap and analyse why the African Standby Force was not able to meet this need. We then consider the implications of these developments for the future of the APSA and how closer collaboration between ASIs and APSA can be developed.
Standby security arrangements and deployment setbacks: The case of the African Standby Force
The African Standby Force (ASF) is a key mechanism for advancing African agency in addressing the continent’s peace and security threats. The African Union (AU), regional economic communities (RECs) and regional mechanisms (RMs) have previously deployed stabilisation missions and ad hoc security initiatives (ASIs). Yet these deployments don’t strictly reflect the principles envisaged in the original ASF make-up and authorisation processes. In this report, the authors argue that the future of the ASF future should be seen as an opportunity for the AU and RECs/RMs to standardise the quest for African agency and adopt an agile approach that aims for better partnerships between the RECs, ASIs and member states.
The Sheikh versus the president: the making of Imam Dicko as a political Big Man in Mali
In the lead up to the military coup in Mali in August 2020, Imam Dicko Mahmoud Dicko solidified his status as one of the country’s most important power brokers. How did a religious leader achieve this is a country where politics is considered ‘dirty’, the social capital of religious leaders’ rests on being seen as honest and pious, and politics and religion are considered constitutionally separate? Drawing on recent work in African Studies that utilises the classical ‘Big Man’ concept of Marshall Sahlins, this article tracks the political engagement of religious leaders with a particular focus on the political career of Imam Dicko. We document both his failures and how he learned to play politics without tarnishing his image as a pious man of God. We argue that Dicko’s hybrid mix of theology and politics led his followers into new terrains that even the secular opposition could buy in to. In turn, this opens up space for Salafi actors to navigate the straits between resistance and collaboration with the state.