Routledge Handbook of African Peacebuilding

Bruno Charbonneau, Maxime Ricard, Bruno Charbonneau, Maxime Ricard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032228433
• eBook ISBN: 9780429594618
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Africa lies at the centre of the international community's peacebuilding interventions, and the continent's rich multitude of actors, ideas, relationships, practices, experiences, locations, and contexts in turn shapes the possibilities and practices of contemporary peacebuilding. This timely new handbook surveys and analyses peacebuilding as it operates in this specifically African context.

The book begins by outlining the evolution and the various ideologies, conceptualizations, institutions, and practices of African peacebuilding. It identifies critical differences in how African peacebuilders have conceptualized and operationalized peacebuilding. The book then considers how different actors sustain, construct, and use African infrastructure to identify and analyse converging, differing, or competing mandates, approaches, and interests. Finally, it analyses specific thematic issues such as gender, justice, development, democracy, and the politics of knowledge before ending with in-depth analyses of case studies drawn from across the continent.

Bringing together an international line-up of expert contributors, this book will be an essential read for students and scholars of African politics, post-conflict reconstruction, security, and peace and conflict studies.

PART I
Institutions

1FROM PEACEKEEPING TO PEACEBUILDINGTowards a UN peace continuum

Alexandra Novosseloff

DOI: 10.4324/9780429060038-3

Introduction

During the Cold War, the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC) between 1960 and 1964 was the only mission for which UN peacekeepers were deployed to Africa. The deployment of the UN Transition Assistance Group in Namibia in 1989–1990 signalled a change, with the UN Security Council authorizing 15 operations in Africa during the following decade. The 2000s and 2010s continued the trend with a peak in 2015, when 8 of the UN’s 16 peacekeeping operations were in African countries, with a total of 96,165 uniformed and civilian personnel serving in these operations (78% of the UN personnel deployed that year). As of the end of November 2021, 6 of 12 operations were in Africa, with 74,329 uniformed personnel deployed (83.7% of the UN personnel). These operations have been very diverse, ranging from observation missions to multidimensional operations, from peacebuilding offices (UNIOGBIS¹) to technical missions such as the one to confront Ebola outbreaks (UNMEER²); from regional offices (in Dakar and Libreville) to support offices for other actors (UNOAU³ in Addis-Ababa, UNSOS⁴); and from hybrid operations (UNAMID⁵) to special political missions (Somalia) and the most recently created mission (UNITAMS⁶ in Khartoum). The UN has deployed all of its tools and cooperated with a variety of stakeholders and non-UN actors such as the African Union (AU) and the European Union, sub-regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and numerous governments and non-governmental actors.

With the development of the AU’s crisis management mechanisms, the relationship between the AU and the UN has become considerably more important whenever crises occur on the continent, and a significant “peacekeeping partnership” (Williams and Boutellis 2014) has developed. In the beginning, African deployments, mainly oriented by the doctrine of “peace support operations,” were conceived as bridging operations to UN peacekeeping missions (Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia) that had been authorized or recognized by the UN Security Council. Increasingly, however, African countries contributing troops have reinforced their commitment to UN missions deployed on the continent, acquiring training, experience, and knowledge that has allowed them to develop their own capacities. Today, African states and organizations are also involved at the political level, whether through bilateral relations, through mediation in which they play the role of special envoys, or through the deployment of small AU political offices alongside larger UN deployments. African states have integrated themselves into a partnership with the UN, not only to share the burden of peacekeeping but also to take part in the management of their own crises.

These developments have taken place in the context of the UN’s own evolving doctrines and its development of tools of crisis management in a continuum that has been unclear at times but that the current secretary-general’s reforms try to reinvigorate (Novosseloff 2019; Johnstone 2016). The goal of this chapter is to present the evolution of the UN’s peacekeeping and peacebuilding doctrines. The focus is on the conceptual construction and evolution of the continuum of crisis management that moves between peacekeeping and peacebuilding – a continuum that expands and contracts depending on the crises that are occurring and their various contexts, and one that remains an implementation challenge for the UN system as a whole.

The beginning of the conceptualization of a crisis management continuum in An Agenda for Peace and its Supplement (1992–1995)

Over the years and during the course of operations, the UN and its member states have sought to conceptualize and even to categorize the various types of actions that they carry out in the field, actions that have met with success or, more often, with disappointment. Although doctrines of the use of force have existed for a long time, a typology of international intervention first appeared at the end of the Cold War. It was during the 1956 Suez War that the concept of peacekeeping emerged from a new type of intervention that had well-defined principles (neutrality, consent of the host state, use of force only in self-defence) and that was mainly used for the purpose of settling interstate conflicts. The period at the end of the 1980s quickly moved beyond this initial framework. The security uncertainties generated by the “new international order” led to a multiplication of numerous types of operations (Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mozambique, the Western Sahara, Haiti), most of them within states rather than between states. Since then, the Security Council has continued to expand its definition of what constitutes a threat to international peace and security (UN Security Council 2014; UN Security Council 2011a).⁷ In January 1992, it invited “the Secretary-General to prepare his analysis and recommendations on ways of strengthening and making more efficient within the framework and provisions of the Charter the capacity of the United Nations for preventive diplomacy, for peacemaking and for peace-keeping” (UN Security Council 1992). An Agenda for Peace was published on 17 June 1992 (UN General Assembly, UN Security Council 1992; UN Security Council 1993).⁸

An Agenda for Peace defined for the first time the various possible phases of a crisis management response. These phases correspond to the many possible types of operations that can be deployed in the field or to the numerous tools available to the UN and its member states (see Box 1.1). Thus, this document from the secretary-general paves the way for “a wider mission” for the UN (and for its national and international partners) and defines the “areas for action” that correspond to a “coherent contribution towards securing peace in the spirit of the Charter” and to a gradation of intervention options and peacemaking techniques, ranging from preventive diplomacy to peacebuilding and thus from peacemaking to peacekeeping. It was An Agenda for Peace that first conceptualized an integrated vision and approach to peace operations that took into consideration the fact that “peace could not be safeguarded merely through a narrow perspective confined to military issues… [T]he maintenance of international peace and security [is] a much wider concept, encompassing political as well as economic, social, humanitarian and environmental issues” (UN General Assembly 1992a, para. 10). An Agenda for Peace places particular emphasis on preventive diplomacy as “the most desirable and efficient means of easing tensions before they result in conflict” (UN General Assembly 1992b). Moreover, it attaches particular importance to cooperation with the regional agreements and organizations that are stipulated under Chapter VIII of the Charter and that complement the efforts of the UN (Boutros-Ghali 1949).⁹

Thus, An Agenda for Peace paved the way for the creation of parallel forces to peacekeeping operations that were in fact developing at the time, the initial one being NATO’s Sky Monitor operation to create a no-fly zone in support of the action by the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in 1992 (Resolution 781, 12 October 1992). The first of these operations to be deployed in Africa was the United Task Force (UNITAF), or Operation Restore Hope, conducted by the United States between December 1992 and May 1993 in support of the UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM; Novosseloff and Sharland 2019). Finally, An Agenda for Peace has also served as a basis of reflection for the development of the doctrines of regional organizations such as the AU. As one ACCORD¹⁰ researcher points out, “the AU approach has benefited from this holistic approach to thinking about peace and this leads to comprehensive peace interventions” (Zondi 2017).

Box 1.1 Definitions in An Agenda for Peace

Preventive diplomacy is “action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur.” It includes measures to help build confidence, improve fact-finding, provide early warnings, reinforce preventive deployments, and establish demilitarized zones.

Peace-making is “action to bring hostile parties to agreement, essentially through such peaceful means as those foreseen in Chapter VI of the Charter of the United Nations.” It includes introducing mediation and negotiation measures for the peaceful settlement of disputes, increasing recourse to the International Court of Justice, improving the assistance provided to the victims of conflicts, using military force, signing agreements under article 43 with the help of the Military Staff Committee, and creating peace enforcement units.

Peace-keeping is “the deployment of a United Nations presence in the field, hitherto with the consent of all the parties concerned, normally involving United Nations military and/or police personnel and frequently civilians as well. Peace-keeping is a technique that expands the possibilities for both the prevention of conflict and the making of peace.”

Post-conflict peace-building is an “action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict. Preventive diplomacy seeks to resolve disputes before violence breaks out.” It can include “disarming the previously warring parties and the restoration of order, the custody and possible destruction of weapons, repatriating refugees, advisory and training support for security personnel, monitoring elections, advancing efforts to protect human rights, reforming or strengthening governmental institutions and promoting formal and informal processes of political participation.” All of these activities are related to security sector reform, maintaining the rule of law, and providing support for democratization. “Preventive diplomacy is to avoid a crisis; post-conflict peace-building is to prevent a recurrence.”

Although An Agenda for Peace is a major report of the immediate post–Cold War era and reflects the hope generated by the collapse of the bipolar world, its implementation has had little effect. The member states may have thought that the UN had the means to implement this vision of a world where the Security Council would never again “lose the collegiality indispensable to its proper functioning” and where “a strong sense of consensus and common interest” would prevail. And to a certain extent, An Agenda for Peace took for granted the continuation of this cooperation and the willingness of member states to act in an orderly and sequenced manner. In January 1995, the Supplement to An Agenda for Peace realistically pointed out a number of limitations, particularly in the area of interstate cooperation and with respect to coordination: “[T]he roles of the various players need to be carefully coordinated in an integrated approach to human security” (UN General Assembly, UN Security Council 1995, para. 81). The secretary-general recognized the UN’s limitations when it comes to resolving intrastate conflicts where the consent of the parties is precarious and where the collapse of state institutions is total.

The 2000s: crisis management as a unified whole, peacebuilding as exit strategy

In An Agenda for Peace, crisis managemen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Whose Peacebuilding? Power, Politics, Practices
• Part I Institutions
• Part II Themes and Debates
• Part III Case Studies
• Conclusion: African Peacebuilding for Whom and for What? Bringing the People Back In
• Afterword
• Index