Next AU Commission faces headache of continental failure in wiping out conflicts

The African Union’s next Commission may have to carry the can of dealing with conflicts, a result of failure by the continental bloc to end violence in spite of a goal it set itself a decade ago.

A new report on the workings of the African Union in solving armed conflict on the continent says the AU has mostly failed in its methods, seeing more violence hotspots erupt in the past decade, compared to years before the target was set.

In fact, the continental bloc had, in 2020, reset the goal of Silencing Guns by another 10 years, a subtle admission the original goal that was to be attained by 2020 had been missed.

It means the next pool of commissioners at the African Union will carry the can of addressing the perennial problem.

The AU is expected to hold elections for the chairperson and commissioners of the African Union by February next year. Four candidates are competing for the post, which is the definitive CEO of the African Union. They are: Anil Gayan of Mauritius, Raila Odinga of Kenya, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf of Djibouti and Richard Randriamandrato of Madagascar.

They are seeking to take over from Moussa Faki of Chad who has been in office since 2017. Each of these contenders has promised to promote peace and security as a basis for continental development.

They have also vowed to support better governance to ensure African resources are properly exploited to sustainably benefit Africans.

This week, Amani Africa, an independent African based policy research, training and consulting think tank that focuses on the workings of the African Union, said the new team will have a hard task of changing the methods of solving conflict, beginning with clarifying just how this should be.

“Such clarity is critical to recalibrate the strategy and the approach to STGs and to mobilise the kind as well as nature of the response that the peace and security landscape on the continent warrants,” Amani Africa said in a policy document titled, Memo to the new AU Commission Leadership from the Roaring Guns on AU’s First Decade of Silencing the Guns.

The AU had, in 2013, set itself an ambitious goal, part of the Agenda 2063 in which the continent wanted to see itself as prosperous, peaceful and stable by 2063. One goal was to end all kinds of wars and armed conflict by 2020, because the AU member states said prosperity should come by ending wars.

The goal failed. Since then, more wars have emerged, and old ones reignited, in situations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

“The data and analysis presented in this research report shows that Africa has experienced regression with respect to its STGs agenda since the inauguration of the agenda in May 2013. It makes it evident that this regression in the conflict landscape of Africa is alarming in its scale and impact.”

One reason for frequent conflicts is poor governance including corruption, lack of democratic practices, ethnic strife, poverty and illegal arms proliferation.

But it is also because regional bodies such as the AU and other integration blocs have not worked on specified conflict resolution mechanisms suitable for each case.

Amani Africa says the AU, for example, must address the persistent failure of the continental body to implement its own decisions reached by the African Union Peace and Security Council, its foremost peace and security organ.

“There is also a need to make the decisions that the PSC adopts actionable in three ways: by providing a timeframe for implementation when appropriate, by considering the budget implications of each decision and by assigning responsibility for follow up and implementation as well as reporting on progress.” In the last three years, the Council’s decisions have not been implemented in 93 percent of the decisions taken on various active conflict zones, data shows.

Within the AU itself, a culture of stalling on decisions is not new. President Paul Kagame, who championed AU reforms until February this year when he handed over to William Ruto, had admitted that some decisions reached at the high level were often defied or resisted by bureaucrats or diplomats.

“We even see parallel structures created, whose main purpose seems to be to frustrate and delay reforms which the heads of state have suggested and put in place,” Kagame observed of the culture at the AU, in February.

The think-tank says the AU must first adopt measures “for changing the current peace and security situation by undertaking a strategic review of the situation and AU’s processes including the STGs (silencing the guns) and setting a new agenda for peace and security in Africa.”

Use of mediators, an early warning system and a dedicated envoy on silencing guns have helped ease some conflicts.

It is not that the African Union has completely failed on solving conflicts. In fact, the continental body with other regional blocs have managed to stop wars in Ethiopia’s Tigray region as well as South Sudan, where a reconstruction is currently in place. And each year, the AU member states identify September as month for amnesty where armed groups are allowed to freely surrender.

But others like Sudan have not ended in spite of the AU deploying a high-level panel of envoys.

An internal document by the African Union said last year that the AU will, for the next three years prioritise peaceful settlement of conflicts, conflict prevention and strengthening the AU policies such as particularly reconciliation.

It also suggested strategies to enhance implementation efforts “to curtail the spiral of violence fuelled by the illicit circulation of firearms; the expansion of terrorist threats to various parts of Africa, as well as the resurgence of unconstitutional changes of governments across the continent.”

Some five countries are currently suspended from the AU for having coups, including Gabon, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

These will be the headache for the next AU leadership.

But Amani says there shouldn’t be one solution for all but a tailored the specificities of each conflict and well time to guarantee success.

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