Essays present critical analysis and debate on a pressing issue in African peacebuilding.
Sierra Leone’s fourth post-war presidential, parliamentary, and local elections, scheduled for March 7, 2018, will be the litmus test to assess whether democratic principles are entrenched in the country’s post-conflict electoral politics. This is because the upcoming elections are the first to be organized solely by the government since the end of the civil strife in January […]
Farmer-Herder conflicts have grown in frequency across the Sahel region of West and Central Africa, including in Ghana, where they have evolved over time in phases. This article explores the drivers of farmer-herder conflict and the challenges it poses to sustainable peacebuilding in Ghana, using Agogo Traditional Area (ATA) in the Ashanti region of Ghana […]
Conflict within and between militant groups in the Arogbo-Ijaw area of Ondo State in Nigeria are the result of struggles for supremacy. Such violent communal conflict has emerged as one of the features of local communities in Nigeria’s oil producing states. Although most studies of oil-related conflict in the Niger Delta focus on violence in […]
Youth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—as everywhere else—are the main participants in violent conflict. They constitute the vast majority of the national army and the plethora of armed militias in Eastern DRC. One of the most recent self-styled ‘resistance’ movements attracting hundreds of young fighters to join its ranks is Maï-Maï Yakutumba. […]
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Laurie Nathan, University of Pretoria Every mediation to resolve a major conflict in Africa is based on a mandate that shapes the process and outcome of peacemaking. This is true of mediations in Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Namibia, Sudan, Zimbabwe and many other countries. […]
Building state institutions, providing services, and promoting economic development in conflict-affected regions are usually considered integral to peacebuilding. This essay interrogates that position by drawing on empirical evidence from fieldwork conducted in Ethiopia’s lower Omo Valley—a marginalized region inhabited by agro-pastoralist groups such as the Mursi and Mela (Bodi) of Salamago district. There are several […]
The persistence of insecurity and instability in parts of North Africa and the Sahel belt has benefited the numerous armed non-state actors in the region including separatist groups, terrorists, and transnational criminal networks engaged in the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and people. The African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), the African Union’s (AU) set of […]
This essay previously appeared in the first issue of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) newsletter, “Governance Link” (November-December 2017). The APRM was established in 2003 by the African Union in the framework of the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Member countries use the APRM to self–monitor all aspects of their governance and […]
This is a cross-post from Items, a Social Science Research Council digital forum that renews and reimagines the Council’s former newsletter as a space for engagement with our work and with the social sciences more generally. Ebunoluwa O. Popoola was a Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa fellow in 2012. After six decades of oil production […]
At the end of July 2017, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced that the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the Central African Republic (CAR) had reached 600,000. The number of refugees, most of whom are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Cameroon, had reached 480,000. This recent […]
