Policy Brief Series

AU Approaches to Peacebuilding:

Efforts at Shifting the Continent

Towards Decolonial Peace

by Siphamandla Zondi

19 October, 2016

Project: “Rising Powers and Innovative Approaches to

Peacebuilding”

www.RisingPowersandPeacebuilding.org

About  the  Project      The  Rising  Powers  and  Peacebuilding  project  seeks  to  address  an   important  question  that  has   not   yet   been   thoroughly   researched:   what   are   the   new   approaches   that   rising  powers   have   taken   to   peacebuilding,   how   do   they   differ   from   those   of   traditional  powers  and  multilateral  institutions,  and  what  lessons  can  be  learned  from  these  new  approaches?      The  policy  briefs  in  this  series  provide  a  baseline  on  the  roles  of  rising  powers  and  their  affiliated  regional  organizations  in  peacebuilding.  To  this  point,  little  research  has  been  conducted  on  the  substance  and  impact  of  peacebuilding  activities  carried  out  by  rising  powers.  This  project  seeks  to  address  this  gap  in  the  research  by  providing  a  structured,  critical  analysis  of  the  values,  content  and  impact  of  recent  peacebuilding  initiatives  of  rising  powers,   comparing   them   to  one  another  and   to  approaches  by  Western  donors  and   international   organizations.   The  project   also   aims   to   offer   new   theoretical   claims  about  the  role  of  the  global  South  in  peacebuilding,  rooted  in  insightful  empirical  work  (on   Somalia,   Afghanistan   and   Myanmar   and   on   specific   non-­‐Western   actors),   and   to  make  key  policy  audiences  aware  of  alternative  approaches  and  their  empirical  records  and   theoretical   underpinnings   (which  may   vary   among   values,   global/regional   power  aspirations,  bureaucratic  approaches).      The   project   partners   will   also   produce   case   studies   on   the   role   of   rising   powers   in  peacebuilding,  and  include:  ACCORD  (an  NGO  based  in  South  Africa),  the  Istanbul  Policy  Center  (IPC),  the  United  Service  Institution  of  India  (USI),  American  University’s  School  of  International  Service  (SIS),  CSIS-­‐Jakarta,  and  the  Norwegian  Institute  of  International  Affairs   (NUPI).   The   project   is   funded   by   the   Carnegie   Corporation   of   New   York,   the  Norwegian  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs,  American  University,  and  NUPI.  

1

AU Approaches to Peacebuilding: Efforts at Shifting

the Continent towards Decolonial Peace1

Siphamandla Zondi,

Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs,

Department of Political Sciences,

University of Pretoria

Introduction

The African Union (AU)’s approach to peacebuilding is an outcome of African

experiences with peace missions as well as lessons from the global environment

especially the peace efforts of the United Nations (UN). Murithi correctly locates

discussions about peace efforts in Africa in actions, successes and failures since the

formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and sees them as part of the

institutionalisation of pan-African ideals of prosperity for all, peace, development,

self-reliance, freedoms and liberation.1 This gives the AU approach its fundamental

uniqueness: i.e. that it was born in a particularly painful historical experience with

injustice, domination, external manipulation, internal neo-colonial arrangements and

the structure of violence embedded in Africa’s dismemberment that began in earnest

at the Berlin Conference in 1884-5. It is a paradigm and approach to building peace

that comes to a large extent from Africa’s particular experiences of the global-

regional-national structures of power and life that make up modernity/coloniality and

their clash with the aspirations of people on the periphery of the world system we live

in today.

While a major part of this pan-African peacebuilding agenda is contained in the

African Post-Conflict Reconstruction Policy Framework, but understood holistically

this agenda is in the pan-African dreams from slavery to globalisation, the dream of

an African renaissance, a wish to rebel against never-ending coloniality on a global

scale. This is not claim that this agenda is consciously and actively anti- imperialist, as

the dream would have intended it to be, but that unlike the European pursuit of peace

1 This paper was commissioned by the risingpowersandpeacebuilding.org project. See Annex A for more information on the project.

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born out of the need to end wars, Africa’s was born out of a completely different

history: the history of agency for peace as liberation, freedom, decolonisation,

development, self-reliance, solidarity and other aspects of liberation

theories/paradigms. The incomplete transition of Africa from the colonial to the post-

colonial, what Ndlovu-Gatsheni terms “neocolonised postcolonial” conditions where

peace and development remains elusive for ordinary Africans with the result that neo-

colonial conditions persist, must be born in mind when analysing efforts at

peacebuilding in Africa..2

This think piece argues that the AU approach to peacebuilding, out of Africa’s

historical experience and lessons from the UN, is comprehensive and holistic but

requires the existence of a legitimate government, functional society and domestic

parties for dialogue to begin. Without these conditions, the approach leads to

extended peace enforcement rather than peacebuilding. Yet, whatever the conditions

that prevail, peacebuilding in Africa has remained largely of limited effect without the

fundamental transformation of the inherited post-colonial state, society and politics as

well as the stalled transition of the world system from colonial past through

necolonial present to decolonial futures. Africans’ experiences with peacebuilding

demonstrate the need for a focus on more fundamental peace than is “internationally”

the norm; the shift towards a peace paradigm that hinges also on the continued

decolonisation of the African state and society in order to give rise to what we call

decolonial peace.

Elusive Peace: What Fundamentally is the Problem?

Given the ubiquity of imported approaches to the subject of peace in Africa, I must

begin with a short context on the value of Africa-centred thinking on the whole

problem at hand. Ali Mazrui thinks of Africa today as haunted by the curse of Berlin,

referring to the 1884-5 European partitioning of Africa into unviable states that

embedded the paradigm of violence at the very foundation of African statehood. 3 This

produced what Ngugi WaThiong’o calls deep dismemberment that has defied efforts

at unity, peace and development long after independence, partly because the African

elite that took over were brought up in Euro-North American modernity where the

current African condition was fashioned. For this reason, efforts at peace,

development and liberation without re-memberment of Africa at various levels have

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only helped provide for temporary respites rather than lasting solutions. It is in this

analytical context that we consider the AU’s approach to peacebuilding and its

efficacy in fulfilling the African dream of peace, where peace means removing the

gangrene that set in centuries ago manifesting a constant resurgence of conflict,

poverty and despair. 4 Peace is about a fundamental shift from the paradigm of

violence at the root of the African states to a paradigm of peace that African

renaissance entails.5 But this transition has failed because the African political class

lacked the courage, imagination and revolutionary consciousness to decommission the

inherited modern state in order to invent a new and suitable African political reality.6

Continental Peace Architecture: the Basis of AU Peacebuilding

When the AU was born, conflict patterns had started towards greater incidence of

intra-state conflict than violence between states. 7 With this also emerged new key

factors in conflict such as ethnicisation of political and power struggles, conflict over

scarce resources and access to state power, violence fuelled by the proliferation of

small arms, armed groups influenced by politico-religious ideologies and violence by

groups seeking secession from nation states.8 This revealed the underlying problem of

the failure of the African state to protect and provide to its population, a state that was

not only fragile but without full control over the whole of territory, so that rebel

groups and militia could thrive outside protected capital cities and resourced-towns. It

turned out that this state was elitist, factionalist, tribalist, militaristic and autocratic

implicated more in oppressing and brutalising their people than offering social and

economic development or ensuring security or building peace.9 It is in this context

that the AU refined and expanded the OAU experience with peace missions, to build

its approach to peacebuilding that remains work in progress.

The continental peace architecture provides the institutional framework for

implementing the concept of comprehensive peace that encompasses conflict

prevention, peace making, peacekeeping, post-conflict reconstruction and

peacebuilding. At the pinnacle of this architecture is the AU Peace and Security

Council (PSC) established in 2004 with ten members elected for a two-year term and

five for a longer three-year term in order to provide some stability and continuity to

the Council’s work. The focus of the PSC is similar to that of the OAU Central

Organ, i.e. to prevent and resolve conflicts by monitoring potential security threats

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throughout the continent. 10 It sends fact- finding missions and can authorise AU

interventions in the form of peace envoys, observer missions, mediators, good offices,

technical support teams, and armed forces to keep peace after agreements. Article 7

(e) of the Protocol Relating to Establishment of the Peace and Security Council

operationalizes the AU Constitutive Act’s principle of non- indifference by

empowering the Council to recommend military interventions for authorisation by the

AU Assembly in cases of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes.11 This is

a new dynamic in Africa’s peace agenda, the continental decision-making platform

for peacebuilding plus the principle of non- indifference in the face of violence within

states.

AU-Regional Economic Communities (RECS) Interface

The AU’s peace and security architecture provides for Regional Economic

Communities (RECs) and Regional Mechanisms (RMs) to take responsibility for

peacebuilding and to prevent and resolve conflict situations in their own regions. The

AU’s peace and security architecture thus uses the principle of subsidiarity to manage

peace and security in its sub-regions via the RECs and the RMs.12 No other region in

the world uses sub-regional structures for peacebuilding in the same fashion. For

instance, the AU has established an African Standby Force (ASF) consisting of five

regional standby brigades, as well as police and civilian capabilities, which enables

the AU to respond rapidly to violent conflicts. The ASF consist of three RECs: the

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African

Development Community (SADC) and the Economic Community of Central African

States (ECASS), as well as two RMs: the North African Regional Capability

(NARC) and the East African Standby Force (EASF) and the Arab Maghreb Union

(AMU). Another example is the AU’s Panel of the Wise – a prevention, peacemaking

and mediation instrument in the AU’s peace and security architecture – that is

replicated at the REC level and then coordinated continentally through the AU’s

PANWISE network.

The SADC role in peace processes is a case in point. It took the lead in facilitating

mediation processes in Lesotho, Madagascar and Zimbabwe. It also deployed stability

forces in the case of Lesotho and led in peacebuilding initiatives like training,

confidence building, reconciliation, security sector reform, reform of electoral

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systems, long-term election monitoring and strengthening of the public service and

governance systems. SADC representatives report regularly to the AU PSC where

they also sought endorsement of their peacebuilding efforts and looked for refreshed

mandates. The AU relies heavily on the ability of the RECs and RMs to provide

political, security and financial resources to these peace processes. This role of sub-

regional RECs and RMs is thus a unique example of burden sharing between the

continental body as well as the sub-regional bodies. The AU’s international partners,

including especially the European Union, have also been invaluable in supporting the

establishment of this cooperative peace and security system. The analysis shows that

this devolution of peacebuilding responsibilities strengthened the capacity of the sub-

regional organisations to respond swiftly to prevent, manage and resolve conflict for

purposes of building sustained peace. 13 The recent work of the East African

Community (EAC) to prevent a further escalation of the crisis in Burundi and to

support the international mediation process in 201514 and IGAD’s role in facilitating

and subsequently monitoring South Sudan’s peace negotiations, and its recent

initiative to deploy a sub-regional protection force to stabilise Juba after new fighting

broke out between the factions in July 2016 15 , are examples of how the AU’s

approach of devolving some responsibility for peacebuilding to those sub-regional

organisations closest to the crisis situations have worked in practice.

This devolution of responsibility is dependent, however, on the coherence and

capacity of the sub-regions. Among the sub-regions the northern region has shown the

least coherence and its REC, the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) remains moribund as a

result of sub-regional infighting, including over the Saharawi (Western Sahara)

question. Secondly, the AU-RECs/RMs interface suffers from poor coordination.16

There is a lack of clarity when it comes to the implications and limits of the principle

of subsidiarity and thus over the division of labour between the AU and RECs. To

date these issues have been dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but this has often

resulted in delays caused by uncertainty over who should take the lead in a given

situation. The AU and RECs/RMs need to negotiate a clear and predictable

cooperation framework. Thirdly, there is still limited horizontal coordination and

harmonisation among RECs/RMs and as a result there is no notable case of REC-REC

or REC-RM coordination of a peace initiative. Fourthly, the RECs require well-

developed institutional mechanisms to deliver on the promise of sub-regional

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responsibility for peace, including by fully operationalizing their standby forces and

their other institutions for political coordination of peace efforts, mediation peace-

making, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. For instance, while the

ECOWAS established the long-awaited Mediation Support Division in the ECOWAS

Commission only in 2015, other elements of the peace architecture – as the Mali crisis

of 2012 showed - including an early warning capability, a rapid military response

force and post-conflict peacebuilding remain work in progress. 17 Until these

weaknesses are remedied, the AU will be forced to rely on UN peacekeeping forces or

former colonial powers like France to respond effectively to urgent security crises as

it happened recently in Mali and the Central African Republic.

AU Thinking and the African Post-Conflict Reconstruction Policy Framework

Many of the lessons learned from various experiments in peacebuilding during the

latter years of the OAU were integrated into the African Post-Conflict Reconstruction

and Development (PCRD) Framework whose development began when in 2002 the

New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)’s implementation committee

decided that Africa’s peacebuilding approach should be an all-embracing strategy

including a) restoring security; b) managing political transition; c) anchoring socio-

economic development; d) promoting human rights and justice; e) resource

mobilisation.18 When the PCRD framework was adopted in Banjul in 2006, the AU

added a 6th indicative element, namely women and gender. Whilst these five

dimensions can be found in many peacebuilding frameworks in one form or another,

the AU’s framework was the only one at the time to include gender as one of the core

peacebuilding dimensions. These six dimensions were designed to be mutually

reinforcing and complementary. The AU’s PCRD framework was one of the first such

policies to argue that these six dimensions should not be pursued in sequence, but

simultaneously, thus breaking with the chronological sequencing model that was

introduced with Boutros-Boutros Ghali’s 1992 Agenda for Peace. This is because it

does not accept the logic that you need one element to be fully in place before the

next phase kicks off as is often the case with the UN and Western approach to peace

building. The AU’s PCRD framework also emphasise that peacebuilding needs to be

locally owned, context-specific and flexible, in order to be responsive to the specific

needs of each situation.

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The AU Record of Peace Interventions: What Key Pillars of the AU Approach to

Peacebuilding?

Burundi

The AU inherited from the OAU several peace interventions, the first being in

Burundi where the OAU had been involved since 1994 in de-escalating conflict, using

good offices, peace envoys, esteemed mediators in Julius Nyerere and Nelson

Mandela respectively, peacekeeping and confidence-building measures.19 The OAU

had succeeded in bringing the parties to a power-sharing agreement in 2001 that led to

a three-year transitional government. The AU got involved in April 2003, half-way

through the transition, and the AU itself was barely a year old. The AU approach

became apparent right at the beginning, with the establishment of a multi-disciplinary

African Union Mission in Burundi (AMIB) with just over 3000 troops from Ethiopia,

Mozambique and South Africa to provide security for returning political activists and

other refugees, and to assist with the demobilisation of armed groups. The mission

was multi-disciplinary comprising of a monitoring team, political envoys and

mediators, and this was an important source of effect for the intervention.

An experienced diplomat, Mamadou Bah, was placed in charge of the mission with a

largely political role to ensure a coordinated peacebuilding effort. The special

representative in this model of peacebuilding is expected to be a peace envoy that is

available full-time on the ground to help the stakeholders resolve any issue that crops

up, to promote the transformation of politics from acrimony to continuous dialogue,

and to catalyse the positive role of international actors on the ground. As Bah

explained, the AU orientation was that the AMIB was focused on creating conditions

for permanent peace and for development rather than merely silencing the guns.20 For

this purpose, the AU focus was on continuous confidence-building measures to enable

the affected country to sustain on its own peace thus built. Central to this approach,

the AMIB mobilised the UN and donor agencies to support the rebuilding of state

capacity to deliver development, fight natural calamities like drought and promote the

country for international investments.

Indeed, the UN played a critical role in reinforcing the AMIB, even before the UN

took over the control of the peace mission converting it into the UN Operation on

Burundi (ONUB) in 2004.21 With greater resources and lots of expertise in complex

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processes of demobilisation and reintegration of armed forces, the UN helped finish

the AU efforts by demobilising thousands of armed persons, which laid the ground for

the return to relative normalcy by 2009. However, the flare up of conflict in 2015,

when armed forces suppressed political activists opposed to President Pierre

Nkurunzinza extension of his presidential term, reminded the AU how fragile peace

processes can be. Whilst the AU retained an office in Burundi, and deployed human

rights and unarmed military observes to strengthen its office, it was the East African

Community (EAC) that played a leading role in convincing the Nkurunzinza

government to participate in international dialogue with opposition groups in January

2016. The AU PSC took a decision in December 2015, in response to the escalating

level of political violence in Burundi at the time, to deploy an AU protection force

(MAPROBU). The PSC decision was controversial because it included a provision to

recommend to the AU Assembly a forced intervention, should the Government of

Burundi refuse to accept the force. The Burundi government did refuse to accept

MAPROBU, but the PSC decision endorsed by the UN Security Council in January

2016 helped to reduce the level of political violence in the country and led to the

resumption of the international dialogue between the Government and opposition

parties. As a result the AU Assembly, when it met at the end of January 2016, found

that the situation on the ground at that point in time did not warrant a forced

intervention. Instead the Assembly dispatched a high- level team, made up of

Presidents from each of the AU’s five regions, to visit Burundi to convey the AU’s

grave concern about the political violence and political crisis in Burundi and to seek

support for increasing the AU presence on the ground to 200 observes, of which 100

would be human rights observes and 100 unarmed military observers. The Burundi

government received the AU delegation and agreed to the increase in the AU

presence, but subsequently frustrated the AU’s efforts to deploy the observers as well

as restricted the freedom of movement of those already deployed. The AU and EAC’s

support to Burundi is continuing, but its history to date is a telling example of how all

the dimensions of the AU’s PCRD framework has been employed over time. At times

these efforts were successful, such as when the AU and the region was able to

negotiate a peace agreement, and deploy AMIB to consolidate the peace process and

to start demobilising those rebel groups that have been part of the peace agreement.

At other times these efforts failed or were weak, such as is currently the case with the

AU and the region seemingly having little leverage on the Nkurunzinza government.

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Somalia

The AU intervention in Somalia was conditioned by factors quite different from those

that prevailed in Burundi because Somalia had experienced a complete collapse of the

state in the early 1990s and had become a complex den of militia-driven and terror-

linked conflict.22 Central to the AU approach has been the OAU idea of establishing a

transitional government with a semblance of stability in Somalia. The AU approach

requires the establishment of a government to be at the centre of dialogue,

stabilisation, legitimation of international interventions and to be the institution to

which peace missions hand over the task of building peace in the long run. Restoring

constitutional normalcy is for the AU the basis for peace intervention and that is why

it places so much emphasis on brokering political agreements that provide for

transitional governments. In this case, the AU supported the Inter-Governmental

Authority for Development (IGAD) in its efforts to establish several fragile

transitional governments since 2003. As a result the AU’ peace intervention remains

stuck in its first phase (establishing a government and beginning political dialogue)

and there are no clear prospects for the AU approach to lead to sustainable peace in

Somalia under the present conditions. The AU deployed the AU Mission in Somalia

(AMISOM) under a UN mandate, in the form of Security Council Resolution 1725 of

December 2006. The UN had the lead on political dialogue, constitution-building,

security sector reform and coordination with international agencies whilst the AU was

tasked with securing key government institutions and stabilising the security situation.

The peace process in Somalia has not been able to go beyond very basic tasks of

political dialogue and propping up a fragile transitional government. The progress

made by AMISOM on the ground – AMISOM first secured Mogadishu and then

liberated most of the major towns in Somalia that was formerly under the control of

Al-Shabaab, however, Al-Shabaab remains capable of striking the government and

AMISOM and is still active in large parts of Somalia outside the major towns and

cities - have not been transformed into conditions for peace in Somalia. The

combination of a weak government and the ongoing threat posed by Al-Shabaab and

other militia mean that national dialogue towards some constitutional normalcy and

transitional political arrangements have not take root. 23 The Somalia experience

underlines the need to shift quickly from mere stabilisation of the security situation to

normalisation of the political environment including the establishment of a legitimate

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and effective government as the basis for AU PCRD intervention. It is risky to deploy

an AU peacekeeping force before there is a ceasefire and a sustainable political

process in place because the AU forces get trapped in the un-ending cycle of conflict.

International burden sharing and cooperation, between the AU and the UN, and

between the AU and the RECs is a positive development. However, the AU should

guard against ending up in a situation, as currently prevails in Somalia, where it

provides only the security, when its PCRD policy framework clearly spells out that

for peace to be sustained one needs to engage in all six of the indicative elements

simultaneously.

Sudan

The African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) was established in 2004, in the same

year that the PSC was established. Its mandate was to minimise the impact of the

conflict between government forces, militias and rebel groups on civilian populations

in Darfur as well as to secure the environment for political interventions aimed at

finding peace agreements among key political actors. Fought largely through proxy

forces like militia and armed bandits, the conflict in western Darfur descended into a

deadly ethnic conflict and banditry, resulting in mass killings and the displacement of

approximately 2 million people.

The AU peace intervention in Darfur sheds light on a different challenge to the AU

peacebuilding approach than the Somalia case. Where Somalia suffered from a weak

state and weak government, Sudan has a strong government that insists on and

fiercely defends its state sovereignty. As indicated earlier the AU approach to

peacebuilding is broadly similar to that of the UN in that both prioritise engagement

with the government of the day – or establishing one where none exist – and see such

a government at the centre of dialogue and as its main partner in its stabilisation

efforts. AMIS was deployed prior to the PCRD framework being adopted in 2006. It

was thus still designed along the old model where peacebuilding is seen as a phase

that follows once a peace agreement is in place and the violence has stopped. The

AU’s PCRD framework sees peacebuilding as the overarching purpose of any AU

intervention, where ongoing political dialogue, confidence-building and institution-

building is central to the peacebuilding effort from the start until the peace processes

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is self-sustainable. As we will see this new element was, and still remains missing in

the AU and subsequent AU-UN hybrid interventions in Darfur.

In September 2003, under an initiative led by President Idris Deby of Chad, the

Abeche Agreement was signed by the main rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation

Movement (SLM) and the government, and this resulted in a ceasefire, and an

agreement to disarm irregular armed groups and to provide a safe passage for

humanitarian assistance.24 AMIS was deployed and became involved in attempts to

implement the agreement. This agreement, and may such subsequent agreements

failed to hold, and instead AMIS initiated confidence-building measures like

facilitated dialogues among affected communities in the region. In addition, AMIS

focussed on protection of civilians, especially those that sought safety in Internally

Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. The AU’s top leadership including the chairperson of

the AU Commission also demonstrated the positive effect they bring into ending a

stalemate when they get involved at the right time, albeit for a short time.

In 2007, AMIS was replaced by an AU-UN hybrid mission operation in Darfur

(UNAMID). UNAMID had access to the UN’s assessed contribution system for

financing UN peace operations and almost overnight the missions budget went from

approximately 500 million USD to 2 billion USD. The mobility and the increase in

the size of the force meant that the new mission could cover more ground and at first

this resulted in significant improvements in the mission’s ability to protect civilians

and to support and enable humanitarian action. However, almost ten years later, it is

clear that with a mandate limited to monitoring cease-fire agreements, protecting

civilians and supporting humanitarian assistance, UNAMIS, and AMIS before it, is

limited to conflict management. As a result Darfur is stuck in a no-peace-no-war

stalemate.25 AMIS and UNAMID have helped to save lives, but with a mandate that

limits the mission to conflict management, there is no hope that the conflict can be

resolved. From a PCRD and AU peacebuilding perspective, the lesson is that a

security or protection only mandate cannot result in a resolution of a conflict. A

comprehensive PCRD approach is necessary, where the six indicative elements are

pursued simultaneously, if the AU and the RECs/RMs are going to be able to

contribute to sustainably resolving a given conflict. The conflict in Darfur, as was

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shown as well in the case of Burundi, also further reminds the AU that the role of an

inter-governmental body like the AU is constrained when the receiving state chooses

to exercise its sovereignty in such a way as to block or frustrate the actions of the AU.

What then is Unique about the AU Peacebuilding Approach?

Part of the uniqueness of the AU approach to peacebuilding is to do with what has

come from the historical evolution of peace initiatives driven by the OAU and then

the AU. Part of it has to do with contextualisation of central tenets of the UN ’s

Agenda for Peace. Methodologically speaking, we have learned from the writings of

Archie Mafeje,26 Georges Nzongola-Ntalanja, 27 Tiyambe Zeleza,28 Molefi Asante,29

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o30 and Paulin Hountondji31 that the authenticity of what is African

arises from the fact that Africa’s unique history produces particular African realities

today, thought patterns, approaches and orientations. This is true of all areas of public

policy and politics including peacebuilding. No serious study of an African idea or

reality can avoid the historical evolution of realities today. The following discussion

is on the key tenets of the particular AU approach to peacebuilding. We begin with

relatively uniquely AU tenets of peacebuilding.

The Concept of Peacebuilding as All-Encompassing

The AU approach has benefitted from a comprehensive conceptual basis that

emphasized the interconnectedness the six indicative elements of the PCRD

framework, namely: security; humanitarian and emergency assistance; political

governance and transition; socio-economic reconstruction and development: human

rights, justice and reconciliation; and women and gender.

The UN also increasingly recognise that the four key pillars of Agenda for Peace

(prevention, peace making, peacekeeping and peacebuilding) has to be seen as

interconnected, interdependent and mutually-reinforcing. The 2015 report of the UN

High-Level Independent Panel of Peace Operations and the 2016 UN Security

Council and General Assembly resolutions on the review of the UN peacebuilding

architecture affirmed this. Therefore, the AU approach has benefited from this holistic

approach to thinking about peace, leading to comprehensive peace interventions.

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In line with the comprehensiveness of this conceptual framework, the AU approach to

peacebuilding emphasize multi-disciplinary engagement that include capacities to

anticipate, de-escalate, secure, monitor and support post-conflict reconstruction and

development. The capacities to prevent conflict, to resolve on-going conflict, to

protect peace processes and to support building new and peaceful societies are central

to the AU approach. The AU approach also emphasizes the importance of national

and local ownership, and see such local ownership of the peace process as a

prerequisite for sustainable peace.

An Enabling Legal Framework

Unlike the OAU Charter, the AU Constitutive Act permits the AU to intervene in

member states in cases of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. This

removes the old problem where the pan-Africanist ideal of peace and prosperity is

hampered by the Westphalian principle of non- intervention in national affairs. On this

basis, Africa is among the few regions to provide the legal framework for setting

aside the principle of non-intervention in specific circumstances, and it did so before

the Responsibility to Protect norm was established. Therefore, the AU Constitutive

Act, the Protocol establishing the PSC and other decisions of the AU on peace

provide a conducive legal-political environment for a comprehensive approach to AU

peacebuilding.

A Comprehensive Peace Architecture

The establishment of a continental peace and security architecture with the PSC at the

centre is an outcome of lessons learned in the latter years of the OAU when the

Central Organ on security was established. The African Standby Force, with its

regional brigades in all five regions of the AU, are meant to enable the AU to respond

timely to outbreaks of violent conflict. The Continental Early Warning System

(CEWS) assists the AU and the RECs/RMs to take early action to prevent conflict,

and the Panel of the Wise and the PANWISE network assist the AU to sustain its

prevention, peacemaking and peacebuilding initiatives. Similarly the AU Peace Fund,

especially in light of the July 2016 Kigali Summit decision re AU funding, assists the

AU to generate the resources necessary for these tools to be adequately resourced.

The AU Commission serves as the secretariat for these instruments, especially

through the Peace and Security Department and the Department of Political Affairs,

14

These elements of the African Peace and Security Architecture provides the necessary

institutional framework for the support of the AU’s peacebuilding interventions.

The Resource Question

The reliance on former colonial powers and other external forces for financial and

technical resources seriously undermine the AU’s peacebuilding. If the pan-African

ideal was self- reliance on the basis that borrowed waters do not quench one’s thirst, as

an African proverb goes, then dependence on external financing of peacebuilding

defeats the very purpose why the AU approach on this exists. We have shown that the

AU approach is founded in African renaissance and in the ideals of decolonising the

world; this cannot be achieved while allowing Western powers space to influence

what Africa thinks and does to this end. The failure of the AU to finance its

programmes generally and the inability of many of its member states to finance their

regular budgets is a major threat to the second decolonisation of Africa, finishing the

unfinished process of liberating the continent. This resource problem points to a

fundamental weakness in the postcolonial African condition for it is symptomatic of

the postcolonial realities of deferred dreams, shattered expectations and illusions of

change.32

In this context, the decisions of the AU Assembly at the July 2016 Summit, if

implemented, could significantly change this history of dependence of the AU on

partners. The Assembly decided that Member States will place a 0.2% levy on

selected imports, and that the income from this levy shall be used by the Member

States to pay its assessed contributions to the AU. According to models developed for

the AU by the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), and the AU High

Representative of the AU Peace Fund, Dr. Donald Kaberuka, these levies should yield

sufficient funding to pay 100% of the AU’s regular budget, 75% or more of the AU’s

programme budget and 25% or more of the AU’s peace and security budget. Dr.

Kaberuka also made recommendations to the Assembly for the governance of the

Peace Fund and for negotiations with the UN for access to the UN’s assessed

contribution system for AU Peace Operations authorised by the UN, and these

recommendations was also adopted by the Assembly. These decisions, if

implemented, will significantly alter the AU’s dependence on partners and will

increase the ownership and positive engagement of African Member States in the

15

peace and security activities of the AU, RECS and RMs, including in the area of

peacebuilding.

AU-UN cooperation

Clearly, the cooperation between the UN and the AU in peacebuilding in Africa is

positive for building and strengthening African capacity for peacebuilding as well as

for boosting UN interface with regional organisations in keeping with the princip le of

subsidiarity. The AU approach is to lay the ground for such cooperation through

comprehensive peace missions of its own, focused on anticipating conflict hotspots,

confidence building and peacekeeping. This is essential for African ownership of

hybrid missions as well as for building African capacity for peacebuilding. The

challenge is to develop a shared conceptual framework for the AU and UN.

Broadening the Focus Beyond Rebuilding the State

It is clear that like the states that constitute it as an intergovernmental organisation,

the AU is still trapped in state-centric approaches to peace, focusing more on

rebuilding the state rather than transforming society as a whole. The full implications

of the AU’s PCRD framework, that goes beyond merely establishing a functioning

nation-state in the form of governmental institutions that provide services and

security, and that also focus also on boosting indigenous civil society structures that

form part of social capital for peace and development, needs to implemented. Such a

focus on inclusive social institutions should be linked to institution building,

leadership development, citizenship enhancement, gender equality, and the

empowerment of woman and youth.

Parallel Peace Initiatives from Below

The AU policies and protocols have not done enough to enable citizen involvement in

the implementation of AU programmes. The Post-Conflict Reconstruction and

Development policy suffers from the same weakness. As a result, efforts from below

function mainly because citizens pursue them rather than because governments enable

them. African civil society interventions for peace are many and various. The most

notable include the women-driven efforts that helped transform the situation from

conflict to peace in Liberia when organisations like the Women in Peacebuilding

Program (WIPNET), the Mano River Women of Peace Network (MARWOPNET)

16

and Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN) created a peace

movement that politicians and rebel groups could not ignore. These formations

remained vigilant enough to support social efforts to reintegrate demobilised fighters,

building community centres for normalising community relations, providing

counselling for the affected, engaging in post-war community rebuilding, and

convening dialogues to keep peace alive.33 Such peacebuilding initiatives from below

have enjoyed the support of intra-African and extra-African civil society networks as

well as structures of the UN like the UN-INSTRAW and UNWOMEN.34 They have

become crucial for pursuing the full implementation of the UN Resolution 1325. This

is all part of efforts at peace from below involving organs of civil society, women’s

formations playing a prominent role in this, which have increased in number, scale

and impact. This is in spite of a “disenabling” environment for the involvement of

formations from below in AU-driven peacebuilding.35

Conclusion

The AU has implemented some of the lessons learned from the OAU and benefitted

from its own experience since 2000. That experience includes missions in Burundi

(AMIB), the Central African Republic (MISCA), Mali (AFISMA) Somalia

(AMISOM) and Sudan (AMIS and UNAMID) as well as numerous fact- finding

missions, initiatives undertaken by special envoys, missions by the Panel of the Wise

and Special Political missions. The AU has also benefitted from the lessons drawn

from others, including that of the UN, EU, League of Arab States, and others. This

has produced the following features of the AU approach to peacebuilding:

Holistic. It is based on a holistic concept of peace that embraces the six

indicative elements of the PCRD framework, namely: security; humanitarian

and emergency assistance; political governance and transition; socio-economic

reconstruction and development: human rights, justice and reconciliation; and

women and gender.

Comprehensive. A comprehensive peace architecture that ranges from early

warning capacity to post-conflict reconstruction and development, but this

remains underdeveloped especially in respect of early warning capability and

post conflict rebuilding mainly due to resource constraints and low political

will to build the architecture on the part of African governments.

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Delegated. A peacebuilding framework anchored on balance between

continental leadership and regional responsibility for peace, but not all

RECs/RMs are ready to give effect to this both in terms of capability and in

respect of political will to act. There is limited horizontal coordination and

interface both among RECs/RMs and among individual countries in building

sustainable peace.

State-centric. Like traditional approaches of the Western powers and the UN,

it remains excessively focused on states as counterparts and partners. It is

premised on the assumption that governments are primary actors who must

build peace and whose destruction brings chaos and conflict, which is not a

complete story of conflict and peace in Africa.

Top-down. The growing participation of non-state actors in supporting state-

driven peace processes, though this is far from enthusiastic on the part of

governments and still suffers the weaknesses to do with donor-driven civil

society initiatives, which including neo-colonial suspicions, imposing models

from Euro-American history, a bias towards technical interventions and so

forth.

Multi-disciplinary. There is an attempt to have interventions that bring

together a variety of expertise, from military to police, peace envoys to

mediators, monitors and technical experts to advise on how to build

government institutions and so forth.

Externally-resourced. While insufficient domestic resources for funding these

expensive undertakings undermine African ownership of peace interventions,

there is a clear intention to have interventions that are driven by African

international organisations like the AU and RECs and implemented by African

governments and other local actors. Until domestic resource mobilisation as

provided for in the AU PCRD is successfully done, this will remain an

unattained ambition.

Historically-grounded. Unique African historical experiences underscore the

importance of fundamentally transforming the neocolonised post-colonial state

and its relations with the former colonial empires for permanent peace to take

root.

18

The record shows that the AU interventions have been relatively successful in de-

escalating conflict and restoring the authority of the state, but they have not been

widely successful in transforming the conditions that lead to sustained peace in

Africa. Whilst some peace processes seem to have been consolidated, others have

remain unresolved. Until the very idea of the modern nation-state on African soil

(which is colonial in its DNA) is resolved, Africa will remain a mortuary where

beautiful concepts and models of peacebuilding die, failing to bringing about lasting

peace. The colonial state and modern society inherited are founded on the paradigm

of war, a logic of violence that does not die at independence and it is this underlying

structure of violence that must be overcome for a truly authentic peace paradigm to

emerge. In the meantime, the AU peacebuilding efforts need to encourage the

interface between efforts from below and those from above, between state-driven and

community driven interventions, and between Eurocentric and Afrocentric

peacebuilding models. The latter will ensure that there is greater harnessing of

indigenous social capital and historical experiences as well as the customisation of

peacebuilding to specific regional and local African realities. Research is urgently

needed to explore this in some detail.

Notes and References

1 Murithi, T. 2008. ‘The African Union’s evolving role in peace operations:

the African Union Mission in Burundi, the African Union Mission in Sudan and the African Union Mission in Somalia’, African Security Review, 17 (1): 70-82, p. 71.

2 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S.J. 2013. Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization, Dakar: CODESRIA.

3 Mazrui, A. A. 2010. ‘Preface: Black Berlin and the Curse of Fragmentation: From Bismarck to Barack.’ In Adebajo, A. 2010. The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, p. xi.

4 A. Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 2. 5 Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

at http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b141-i161, W.E.B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312), 1868–1963. Letter from W.E.B. Du Bois to World Peace Council, 30 October 1953.

6 Nzongola-Ntalanja Georges, 1987. Revolution and counter-revolution in Africa. London: Zed Books, p. ix.

7 Olympio F.K.N. ‘Transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU): A New Vision for the 21st Century, or Political Rhetoric?’ PhD Dissertation, Universitat Trier, Germany, pp. 109-12.

8 Bujra, A. 2002. ‘African Conflicts: Their Causes and Their Political and Social Environment’, DPMF Occasional Paper 4, Addis Ababa, pp. 5-6. Available at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.678.4533&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed on 1 June 2016).

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9 There is a large literature on this failure to transform the state. See, for instance, Nzongola-

Ntalanja Georges, 1987. Revolution and Counter-revolution in Africa. London: Zed Books; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S.J. 2013. Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization, Dakar: CODESRIA; Nkrumah, K. 1965. Neo-Colonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism, London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd.

10 See Baregu, M. (ed.) 2011. Understanding Obstacles to Peace: Actors, Interests, and Strategies in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, Kampala: Fountain Publishers, pp. 14-25.

11 See ‘Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council’. Available at www.au.int/en/treaties/protocol-relating-establishment-peace-and-security-council-african-union (accessed on 2 April 2014).

12 Adibe, C. E. 2003. ‘Do Regional Organizations Matter? Comparing the Conflict Management in West Africa and Great Lakes Region’, in Bouldon, Jane (ed.) Dealing with Conflict in Africa – The United Nations and Regional Organizations. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

13 Zondi, S. and Khaba, B. 2014. ‘The Madagascar Crisis, SADC Mediation and the Changing Indian Oceanic Order’. Africa Insight, 43 (4): 1-17; Zondi, S. 2013.‘South Africa and SADC Mediation in Zimbabwe’, in Rupiya, M. Zimbabwe's Military: Examining its Veto Power in the Transition to Democracy, 2008-2013. Pretoria: African Public Policy Research Institute, pp. 49-79.

14 ICG. 2016. Insights from the Burundian Crisis (III): Back to Arusha and the Politics of Dialogue. 20 May. Nairobi: ICG. Available at https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/burundi/insights-burundian-crisis-iii-back-arusha-and-politics-dialogue (accessed on 20 May 2016).

15 For reflections of the UN Security Council’s Expert Panel on this, see United Nations Security Council. 2015. ‘Interim report of the Panel of Experts on South Sudan established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 220.’ S/2015/656. Available at http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2015_656.pdf (accessed on 12 May 2016).

16 Obuoga, B.O. 2016. ‘Building Regional Capacity for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding in the Great Lakes Region’. Conflict Trends, 5 May. No. 1. Durban: Accord. Available at http://www.accord.org.za/conflict-trends/building-regional-capacity-conflict-prevention-peacebuilding-great-lakes-region/ (accessed on 12 May 2016).

17 Odigie, B. 2016. ‘The Institutionalisation of Mediation Support within the ECOWAS Commission’. Policy and Practice Brief, 042, June. Durban: ACCORD.

18 NEPAD. 2005. African Post-Conflict Reconstruction Policy Framework, Midrand: NEPAD Secretariat.

19 Muyangwa, M. and Voigt, M. 2000. An Assessment of the OAU Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, 1993-2000. IPA Monograph. New York: International Peace Academy, p. 10.

20 ‘Interview with Ambassador Mamadou Bah, the African Union interim chairman's special envoy’, 30 April 2003, Bujumbura. Available at http://www.irinnews.org/q-and/2003/04/30 (accessed on 2 March 2016).

21 Murithi, Op.cit., p. 75. 22 Murithi, Op.cit., p. 81. 23 ‘Report of the Chairperson of the Commission on the Situation in Somalia’, 16 October

2014, Peace and Security Council, Addis Ababa. Available at http://www.peaceau.org/uploads/psc.462.rpt.somalia.16.10.2014.pdf (accessed on 1 June 2016).

24 Murithi, Op.cit., p. 81. 25 Ekengard, A. 2008. The African Union Mission in Sudan: Experiences and Lessons

Learned. Stockholm: Swedish Defence Research Agency, pp. 26-33. 26 Mafeje, A. 2011. ‘Africanity: A Combative Ontology’, R. Devisch and F.B. Nyamnjoh

(eds.), In Post-colonial Turn: Imagining Anthropology and Africa . Leiden: Langaa.

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27 Nzongola-Ntalanja, G. 1987. Revolution and counter-revolution in Africa. London: Zed

Books, p. ix. 28 Zeleza, P.T. 2006. The Study of Africa: Volume 1: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Encounters, Dakar: CODESRIA Books 29 Asante, M.K. 1990. Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge. Trenton: Africa World Press. 30 Ngugi wa Thiong’o. 1981. Writers in Politics. London: Heinemann. 31 Hountondji, Paulin (ed.). 1997. Endogenous Knowledge: Research Trails. Dakar:

CODESRIA Books. 32 Zounmenou, D. undated. ‘Côte d’Ivoire’s Post-Conflict Challenges’. Available at

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rp7QAc7zqOsJ:mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/137282/ichaptersection_singledocument/088a93a7-783a-42d6-84af-f6d7e5bceaef/en/ch_4.pdf+&cd=17&hl=en&ct=clnk (accessed on 12 May 2016).

33 UNIFEM, “Liberian Women Articulate Priorities for the Reconstruction of the Country”, 12 February 2007, Forum on Symposium on Gender and Development in Liberia in Washington DC. Available at: http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=557 (accessed 21 July 2008). Ecoma Alaga, “Gender Perspectives on Security Sector Reform Process in West Africa –Case Studies of Liberia and Sierra Leone”, DCAF, WIPSEN, 2009. “Workshop on Indicators of Peace Consolidation from a Gender Perspective: The Case of Liberia Including SCR 1325 & SCR 182”, Monrovia, February 19-20, 2009.

34 Hendricks, C. and Chivasa, M. 2008. Women and Peacebuilding in Africa. Workshop Report, 24-25 November, Pretoria, ISS. Available at http://dspace.africaportal.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/30921/1/WomanPeaceNov08.pdf?1 (accessd on 12 May 2016).

35 For a ground-breaking critical analysis of peace efforts from below, see Maphosa, L. B., DeLuca, L., and Keasley, A. (eds). 2014. Building Peace from Within: An Examination of Community-based Peacebuilding and Transitions in Africa. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa.