Is there a risk that established analyses of the causes of conflict in Africa are shaping inappropriate, idealistic or cynical policy responses? Is the currently in-vogue political economy of violence perspective the key to understanding the causes of Africa’s many conflicts? Could ‘track two’ diplomacy contribute to more creative initiatives to terminate conflicts?

A report from the University of London’s Institute of Commonwealth Studies provides an overview of Africa’s interrelated conflicts before critically analysing responses to ‘conflict’ diamonds. Showing that the dynamics and ambiguities of the continent’s wars challenge existing analytic and policy prescriptions, it argues that regional studies need to move beyond their traditional focus on economic and functional structures and relationships to understand the more uncomfortable patterns of conflict now involving many non-state as well as state actors.

Key points made by the report include:

• Prospects for regional development recede as conflicts both escalate and proliferate and ‘off-budget’ incomes and expenditures become priorities for regimes and leaders.
• As military budgets decline and statutory forces begin to learn to fend for themselves, some African governments are effectively selling soldiers to the United Nations (UN) and other peace-keeping operations – with some illicit proceeds going into private pockets.
• Doing the hitherto unthinkable, international financial institutions, governments and even some NGOs have begun to sanction the hiring of private security forces – in effect, to counter mercenary interventions.
• Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Israeli entrepreneurs are key players in the illicit trade in precious natural resources which sustains African conflicts.

The Kimberley Process, launched in May 2000, seeks to contain the negative impacts of informal sector extraction and distribution of diamonds. South Africa, Botswana and Namibia have been at the forefront of efforts to halt conflict diamonds and create a certification system. There are, however, emerging inter-regional tensions between the formal, industrial diamond sector in southern Africa and the informal, non-industrial sector elsewhere on the continent.

The report finds encouragement in the emergence of non-state think tanks concerned with such issues as the impact of small arms and the proliferation of mines. They have the potential to engage in direct ‘track two’ type confidence- and peace-building activities. Increasingly, they engage with national NGO networks and the development of indigenous military and civil capacity in peace-building.

Both analysts and policy-makers need to recognise that:

• The ‘triangle’ of state-civil society-economy is becoming quadrilateral as the military acts in a manner increasingly independent of the state in both economic and security matters: soldiers are both businessmen and mercenaries.
• Intra- and extra-continental and state and non-state responses to Africa’s continuing crises will require a mixture of diplomacy and pressure, economics and politics, positive and negative sanctions and track two and three interventions if there is to be any prospect of a genuine and sustainable African renaissance.
• Sub-regional governance architectures, rather than broader regional or continental initiatives, are the most likely to succeed: recent southern African moves towards trans-frontier or cross-border peace-parks could lead to the security-enhancing, wealth-generating successes of export-processing zones in Asia.
• Promotion of human development and security in Africa cannot proceed without the broad involvement of civil society.

Source(s):
‘Conflict and peace-building in Africa: the regional dimensions’, UNU/WIDER, by Timothy M. Shaw, February 2003 Full document.
‘Advancing Human Security and Development in Africa: reflections on NEPAD’, Halifax: CFPS, S. MacLean, J. Harker and T. Shaw (eds), 2002

Funded by: UNU/WIDER

id21 Research Highlight: 13 November 2003

Further Information:
Timothy M. Shaw
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
School of Advanced Studies
University of London
28 Russell Square
London WC1B 5DS
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7862 8826
Fax: +44 (0)20 7862 8820    
Contact the contributor: tim.shaw@sas.ac.uk

Institute of Commonwealth Studies, UK

UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER)
Katajanokanlaituri 6 B
00160 Helsinki
Finland

Tel: +358 9 6159911
Fax: +358 9 61599333
Contact the contributor: wider@wider.unu.edu

UNU/WIDER

Other related links:
Global Witness campaigns for change on global issues

Crisis Web works through field-based analysis to prevent and resolve deadly conflict

Partnership Africa is a coalition of NGOs working on human security

See also Canada's website for Human Security

The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty reports further