Regional Economic Communities and Peacebuilding in Africa

Lessons from ECOWAS and IGAD

Victor Adetula, Redie Bereketeab, Cyril Obi, Victor Adetula, Redie Bereketeab, Cyril Obi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367556341
• eBook ISBN: 9781000342765
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book outlines challenges to the effective operation of regional economic communities (RECs) with regards to peacebuilding in Africa.

Critically examining these issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, with a focus on comparative analysis of the status, role, and performances of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), it examines particular constraints to their effective participation in regional initiatives. Focussing on inadequate technical capabilities, the complicity of state and non-state actors in conflicts within a region, the domestic politics of member states, it additionallyaddresses related theories and practices of peacekeeping, security, development, and the peacebuilding nexus. It also engages provisioning, regionalism, and regional peacekeeping interventions, the legal and institutional framework of RECs, and civil society and peacebuilding. Fundamentally, the book asks how effective the alliances and partnerships are in promoting regional peace and security and how much they are compromised by the intervention of external powers and actors, exploring new ideas and actions that may strengthen capacities to address the peacebuilding challenges on the continent effectively.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of African politics and studies, peace and security studies, regionalism studies, policy practitioners in the field of African peacebuilding, and more broadly to international relations.

The Open Access version of this book, available at:

http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003093695, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

1 Introduction

Regional economic communities and peacebuilding in West Africa and the Horn of Africa

Victor Adetula , Redie Bereketeab , and Cyril Obi

Introduction

The view that peace and development are intrinsically linked has continued to feature prominently in mainstream discourses about global governance and conflict transformation. Many African countries are either dealing with internal conflicts or have just come out from civil war which has far-reaching consequences for development. In 2019, there were active armed conflicts in 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan (SIPRI, 2020, 8). Most of these conflicts were internationalised and overlapped across states and regions “as a result of the transnational activities of violent Islamist groups, other armed groups and criminal networks” (SIPRI, 2020, 8). The complexity of conflict dynamics and emerging security challenges at the regional and global levels require greater cooperation and coordination among states and non-state actors. The current waves of globalisation, coupled with other compelling cross-cutting issues such as the global campaign against terrorism and the impact of climate change, are already feeding into consensus formation and international coordination on a regional basis. Admittedly, there are growing signs of pushback from populist and nationalist groups in some countries. Notwithstanding, the realities on the ground across Africa have contributed to the need and desire for regional collective security systems and conflict management mechanisms on the continent.

Regional efforts to address threats with transnational dimensions such as cross-border conflicts, pandemics, erratic weather changes leading to droughts or flooding, natural disasters, and transnational crimes have led to the adoption of coordinated approaches and mechanisms. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), established in 1975, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), established in 1996, are the cases used in this book to examine the structures, roles, and performance of African regional economic communities (RECs) in peacebuilding. ECOWAS comprises Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo; and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) comprises Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda. IGAD was created as a successor to the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) which had initially been set up in 1986 to address natural resource management and development issues in the Horn of Africa.

The use of comparative analysis and case study approach to assess the performance of the RECs regarding peacebuilding is desirable both in universal and specific contexts. Reference to the global context is in terms of the imperative of regionalist solutions in a world that has become increasingly interconnected, characterised by the changing dynamics of violent conflict, and driven by less altruistic motives. Most of the global powers have been increasingly retreating from active engagement outside their immediate geographical locations. Also, traditional global platforms for the maintenance of international security such as the United Nations (UN) are overstretched, even as multilateralism is in retreat because of growing populism and nationalism in some of the world’s hegemonic states. Consequently, regional institutions have become increasingly relevant and visible.

This relevance has also resonated with the idea of “African solutions to African problems” which underpins the notion of the African Renaissance. According to Ndlovu-Gatsheni the concept of an African Renaissance is based on the idea of “African struggles against colonialism and imperialism as well as within the terrain of African initiatives to unite Africa, and set Afro-modernity afoot” (2020, 2). It cohered with early pan-Africanist thinking, and more recently, the thoughts of scholars like Ayittey (2014), who referred to “African solutions to African problems” as being aimed at stopping the imitation of models from outside the continent, and at looking inwards for solutions based on African experiences and traditions. In the view of Fantu Cheru (2002), the concept had to do with abandoning dogmatic approaches to development and governance, learning from local/homegrown successes and a new kind of African politics.

In the 1990s, former South African President Thabo Mbeki advanced the concept of an African Renaissance and promoted its integration into the thinking that informed a pan-African effort to reposition the continent in an emerging post-Cold War order. This thinking was key to the establishment of the New Partnership for African Development in 2001, the (re)birth of the African Union (AU) in 2002, and the launching of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in 2002 – all initiatives encapsulating the collective search for an Africa-initiated and -driven response to the depredations of colonialism, imperialism, and globalisation. In the words of Lobakeng (2017), “African solutions to African problems” was marked by the search for “a viable solution towards a united, prosperous and peaceful Africa.” It emphasised the centrality of African solidarity, norms, institutions, and mechanisms as solutions to the structural and emerging challenges facing African peace, governance, and development, and in placing the continent on a path towards greater global reckoning in the 21st century.

Thus, the emergence of the AU as an important actor represented a renewed commitment of African states to the regionalist approach to peace and security on the continent. The AU’s main mechanism for promoting peace and security is the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), which involved decision-making on issues related to “prevention, management and resolution of crisis, conflicts, post-conflict reconstruction, and development.” The APSA also represented a significant paradigm shift in the AU’s normative framework from “non-interference to non-indifference,” paving the way for the AU to intervene in any member state where genocide, human right violations, and crimes against humanity are committed. The AU officially recognises the RECs as the representative regional associations of African states. Initially, African RECs were established to promote economic integration. But they have increasingly taken up a prominent role in conflict resolution and peace interventions as evident in the recent peace and security processes across the continent. This recognition of RECS as the “building blocks” for African continental integration was formally acknowledged in the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (Abuja Treaty) of 1991 and the AU Constitutive Act of 2000. APSA was designed to function in collaboration with the RECs and Regional Mechanisms (RMs).

Conceptualising regional integration and peacebuilding

Regional integration

Integration simply refers to units coming together to satisfy objectives which they cannot meet when they act independently. It is, therefore, a process that hastens the achievement of certain objectives in the interest of a larger body. Regional integration is a process of cooperation by countries drawing on historical and geographic commonalities to come together to achieve a set of shared goals: economic and political. Usually, regional integration entails a formal agreement laying out the principles, goals, and targets of such cooperation arrangements. As a process, integration involves the shifting of loyalties, expectations, and political activities towards a new and larger centre whose institutions and processes demand some jurisdiction over those of the national states. The extent of such a transfer of loyalties and authority enjoyed by the new centre depends on the level and goals of integration schemes, as well as the socio-economic and political ramifications that the implementation of integrative policies generate within and between the integrating units (Adetula, 2014, 193).

Often, “regional integration” and “regional cooperation” have been used interchangeably. However, there is a difference between the two in qualitative and quantitative contexts. While “cooperation” may be employed to identify loose forms of interstate activity designed to meet some commonly experienced needs, “integration” refers to a much more formal arrangement that involves some political and economic sacrifices, as well as commitments, concessions, processes, and political will, to redefine participation in the international economy (Axline, 1977; Ihonvbere, 1983). It is within this context that regional integration is conceptualised as a dialectical unity of social, economic, and political processes (Cocks, 1980). Even at that, the debate among scholars about the similarity and difference between the two notions continues to this day. However, there seems to be an agreement that regional integration can be regarded as a process or as a state of affairs reached by that process. According to Fritz Machlup, the more difficult question is what is being integrated – people, areas, markets, production, goods, resources, policies, or something else? (Machlup, 1976, 63). The conception of economic integration as the progressive elimination of trade and tariff discrimination between national borders shows it as a state of affairs and a process. The foregoing notion and many concepts, models, and theoretical formulations that derived from the experience of European integration have long dominated the principle and practice of regional integration. Based on these restrictive conceptualisations and formulations on regional integration, many self-styled common markets, federations, unions, and communities have emerged with their motives, agendas, contents, and mechanisms of operation. Many organisations are pursuing regional integration as strictly an “economic agenda” or “tariff matter” which leaves out some critical issues of development broadly defined.

In the context of the global South, regional integration is an extremely complicated and varied phenomenon which is conditioned by socio-economic and political dynamics different from those in the global North. In other words, the experience of European integration is significantly different from that of the regions of the global South. The universalist claim that the European theories of regional integration are applicable on a worldwide basis without regard for regional differences is deficient. Similarly, the failure to engage the worldwide setting in which regional integration takes place, while nevertheless recognising the importance of exogenous factors as contributing variables, constitutes a contradiction.

As Daniel and Nagar (2014, 9) observe,

Although an institutional framework towards regional integration exists in Africa, implementation of many of the protocols signed over the past five decades has often been hampered by ineffective coordination between the African Union – and before then, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – and Africa’s “sub-regional bodies.”

Beyond this, they have faced challenges linked to the leveraging of national sovereignty over regional interests, weak institutions, poor governance, competitive rather than complementary intra-African trade, poor funding, inter-REC competition, and low levels of domestication of regional policies, standards, and regulations. Gill (2009, 702) offers a critical theoretical perspective to regional integration. He is critical of the role of the West in “imposing and sustaining a discursive hegemony over regionalism” in the global South, which drives a “modernist” conception of regional integration. He argues that “African regionalism has been pursued, both theoretically and empirically, in terms of a neoliberal, free market and Westphalian state model built upon the experiences, values and norms of European integration,” which is “limited and structurally inappropriate” for Africa’s realities.

While the critique above has some merit, it does not address the role of regionalism in Africa adequately, particularly since the end of the Cold War, and within the context of the growing importance of the peace, security, and development nexus. We argue in support of a new perspective that requires broadening the conceptual and theoretical treatment of regional integration to include areas and dimensions neglected by the orthodox approaches to regional integration based mostly on the processes and experiences of regional integration in the global North.

The discourse on regional integration generally has been influenced by history, and by the connection of regionalism to political and socio-economic development, and to security processes. Regional integration as a strategy of development has Western roots connected to the vision of a post-Second World War order, in which regional organisations, working with the United Nations, were expected to play a critical role in the maintenance of international peace and security (see Chapter 2). Admittedly, this global setting may have influenced the discourse about development in Africa where regional integration as a development strategy became appealing to the elites, and where by the 1950s it was incorporated into anti-colonial struggles and efforts towards some forms of “African unity” (Adetula, 1999).

Upon gaining independence, many African countries, in the pursuit of regional integration, acknowledged development as a strategy for reducing dependency and underdevelopment. Many African leaders invested their energies in working for African unity by building pan-African institutions and seeking to defend Africa’s political and economic independence. In this regard, motives for regional cooperation and continental integration included broad economic, social, and political interests, the need for greater international bargaining power, economic prosperity by pooling resources and by connecting markets across national frontiers on a regional scale, and the quest for “African unity” fired by the ideals of pan-Africanism. Many African countries favoured the gradualist approach to African unity, which subsequently resulted in the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. Since its creation in 1958, the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa (UNECA) has played a significant role in the discourse on African development. The OAU and UNECA worked together towards promoting African development and economic integration through sub-regional groupings (Adetula, 1993). These developments are part of the background of the emergence of the African RECs, such as the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), the Common Market for Eastern a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface and acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: Regional economic communities and peacebuilding in West Africa and the Horn of Africa
• 2 Regional economic communities and peacebuilding in Africa: Analysis of legal framework and concerns for international law
• 3 Peacebuilding in Africa: Popular progressive versus neoliberal peacebuilding
• 4 Towards a human security-centred approach to peacebuilding: ECOWAS’s experiences and lessons
• 5 Civil society organisations and the ecowas peace and security agenda: A case study of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP)
• 6 ECOWAS and the limits of peacemaking in West Africa
• 7 ECOWAS and triangular cooperation for peacebuilding in West Africa: Challenges and prospects from the Liberian and Sierra Leonean experiences
• 8 Nigeria’s role in the ECOWAS Peace and Security Agenda for West Africa
• 9 The IGAD–Eritrea impasse: Future prospects in light of recent developments
• 10 Lessons to be learned from IGAD’s involvement in the Sudan peace process (1993–2005)
• 11 Kenya’s diplomacy and international relations within the IGAD region on matters of peace and security: Growth, development, and prospects
• 12 Uganda and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
• 13 Peacebuilding in the context of Ethiopia–IGAD relations
• 14 The big elephant in the room: The meddling and machinations of IGAD and Ethiopia in Somalia
• 15 “You don’t own peace”: The coward state, South Sudan, and IGAD relations
• Index