This book provides a comprehensive analysis of peacekeeping in Africa. Recent events in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mali remind us that violence remains endemic and continues to hamper the institutional, social and economic development of the African continent. Over the years, an increasing number of actors have become involved in the effort to bring peace to Africa. The United Nations (UN) has been joined by regional organisations, most prominently the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU), and by sub-regional organizations like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Meanwhile, traditional and emerging powers have regained an interest in Africa and, as a consequence, in peacekeeping. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the trends and challenges of international peacekeeping in Africa, with a focus on the recent expansion of actors and missions. Drawing upon contributions from a range of key thinkers in the field, Peacekeeping in Africa concentrates on the most significant and emerging actors, the various types of missions, and the main operational theatres, thus assessing the evolution of the African security architecture and how it impacts on peace operations. This book will be of much interest to students of peacekeeping and peace operations, African politics, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR.

Over the past two decades, Africa has seen dozens of conflicts over a variety of issues. Responding to these conflicts requires concerted action to manage the crises - the violence, the political discord, and the humanitarian consequences of prolonged fighting. But it is also necessary to rebuild communities, societies and states torn apart by the conflict, addressing the long-term social and economic impact of the conflict. To do so, it is necessary to look at institutions and groups rarely considered in formal official conflict management activities of African and partner governments - schools, universities, religious institutions, media, commercial enterprises, legal institutions, civil society groups, youth, women, and migrants. These entities can potentially play an important role in building a sense of identity, fairness, shared norms, and a cohesion between state and society - all critical components of the fabric of peace and security in Africa. This book brings together leading experts from Africa, Europe and North America to examine these critical social institutions and groups and identify how they can either build or impede peaceful resolution of conflicts and commitment to common purpose. The second of two volumes on African conflict management capacity, this book will open new doors of understanding for students, scholars and practitioners focused on bringing strengthening peace in Africa.

This interdisciplinary book brings together innovative chapters that address the entire spectrum of the African peacebuilding landscape and showcases findings from original studies on peacebuilding. With a range of perspectives, the chapters cover the full gamut of peacebuilding (i.e. the continuum between conflict prevention and post-war reconstruction) and address both micro and macro peacebuilding issues in the five regions of Africa. Moving beyond the tendency to focus on a single case study or few case studies in peacebuilding scholarship, the chapters examine critical peacebuilding issues at the local, state, regional, extra-regional, and continental levels in Africa. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of African politics, peace and security studies, regional organizations, development studies, state-building, and more broadly to international relations, public policy, diplomacy, international organizations, and the wider social sciences.

This book utilizes a systems thinking perspective to propose a holistic framework of analysis and practice for the regional security community (“RSC”) arrangement in Africa. In responding to the challenge of improving effectiveness of response to peace and security threats, African states tend to rely on ad hoc mechanisms. However, this approach has been mired with a myriad of structural limitations. The holistic framework reconfigures the traditional “RSC” into a simplified tool kit of “resources”, making this text book ideal for students and advanced researchers in international relations, and all those concerned with regional security and strategic studies.

Provides a context for understanding West Africa's security dilemmas, highlighting the link between failures of economic development, governance, and democratization on the one hand and military insecurity and violent conflicts on the other.

This monograph highlights the necessity for taking preventive measures in the form of peace-building as a sustainable and long-term solution to conflicts in West Africa, with a special focus on the Mano River Union countries. Apart from the Mano River Union countries, efforts at resolving other conflicts in say, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, C'te d'Ivoire and Nigeria, have suffered from a lack of attention on the post-conflict imperatives of building peace in order to ensure that sustainable peace is achieved. Given the often intractable and inter-related nature of conflicts in this region, it argues for the need to revisit the existing mechanisms of conflict resolution in the sub-region with a view to canvassing a stronger case for stakeholders towards adopting the peace-building strategy as a more practical and sustainable way of avoiding wars in the sub-region. Peace-building in consonance with its infrastructure is a more sustainable approach to ensuring regional peace and stability and, therefore, ensuring development for the peoples of West Africa. Dr Osita Agbu is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos. His areas of specialization include Peace and Conflict studies, Governance and Democratization and Technology and Development. He was until recently, a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies, Chiba, Japan.