"Given Burundi’s refusal to allow the AU’s peacekeeping force and the UN’s admitted lack of preparedness, what role can the East African Community play in diffusing the situation and ensuring long-term peace that benefits not only Burundi but also the entire region?"
Essays
Essays present critical analysis and debate on a pressing issue in African peacebuilding.
Essays
Human Rights Abuses against the Bakassi People: Are Nigeria and Cameroon Liable?
by Kenneth Chukwuemeka Nwoko
"For the Nigeria–Cameroon border conflict, however—deemed settled between the contesting parties by the Greentree Agreement in 2006—the continuing violation by one or both parties of the rights of the people living in the disputed Bakassi Peninsula raises questions with regard to the functionality of the settlement and the processes that brought it about."
Essays
How Is the Securitization of Africa Addressing Human Insecurity?
by Agnes Wanjiru Behr
"The securitization of Africa has changed academic discourse in several ways by broadening the concept of “security” and its role in reshaping the relationship between the continent and global powers. And yet, in facilitating the process of securitization, African leaders avoid the real challenge of addressing the roots of human insecurity within their countries and regions."
Essays
The South Sudan Peace Deal and Prospects for Peacebuilding
by Kenneth Omeje and Nicodemus Minde
"Post-conflict peacebuilding and reconstruction present a complex challenge to any nascent state emerging from war. In South Sudan, negotiated tradeoffs among political elites were inevitable. Although the war has had a devastating impact, the IGAD peace agreement offers a renewal and a platform for rebuilding the state."
Elections & Governance
The Path to the Ivoirian Presidential Elections: Past Strife and Current Challenges
by Peace A. Medie
"The next few weeks will see heightened political tensions in Côte d’Ivoire, and key actors, particularly the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), will have to pay close attention to unfolding events. The threats to political stability will also not disappear with the election of a president."
Essays
Development and Justice in the Polluted Waterscape of the Niger Delta
by Victor Ogbonnaya Okorie
"Narratives of resource control and ownership in the Niger Delta have not adequately addressed its water crises, especially with respect to a newly emergent neoliberal water market, social justice, and development; instead, most studies of the region have focused on oil. This essay, therefore, draws on a four-year ethnographic study in the region to examine how the emergent water market, driven by an 'invisible hand,' reconfigures contours of social justice and development in the affected communities."
Elections & Governance
Mediating Electoral Violence in a Polarized Society: The Case of Zimbabwe
by Admire Mare and Stanley Tsarwe
"Although the media...are expected to observe, investigate, and subsequently report news as objectively as possible, these institutions are powerful political and cultural actors, influenced by political and economic forces to take subjective positions. In a polarized environment such as Zimbabwe, they are not neutral arbiters of electoral information and images. Rather, the media carry the most basic characteristics of the journalism of war and violence: their reporting is propaganda oriented, elite oriented, and victory oriented."
Elections & Governance
Peace at Stake in Burundi: Could the Crisis Escalate, and Is There a Way Out?
by John Mwangi Githigaro
"The commitment of a section of the opposition to unseating Nkurunziza’s regime, coupled with divisions within the military and the police, could turn the conflict into a civil war, while state responses to repress the opposition could lead to the spreading of violence across the country...Hope remains that peace can be achieved in Burundi, but the window of opportunity is closing fast."
AU-UN Cooperation
African Peace Support Operations: Sites for Deepening the United Nations’ Cooperation with Regional Organizations
by Dawit Yohannes Wondemagegnehu
"Against a backdrop of a dynamic and changing peace and security environment, the UN’s interaction with ROs is being redefined. Given the security realities of the continent, Africa is at the forefront of this historical dynamism, and African PSOs are instrumental in shaping the existing contours of the UN–RO relationship."
Essays
Redefining Peacekeeping: The Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo
by Martha Mutisi
"The coming together of the UN, AU, SADC, and ICGLR to conceptualize and operationalize the FIB demonstrates that hybridization in peacekeeping can work, especially if each intergovernmental organization is allowed to bring to the table its interoperable strengths. African countries provide the troops and equipment to form the brigade, while the UN provides the funding and logistical coordination. When peacekeeping operations are undertaken cooperatively, positive results are easier to achieve."