ACCORD has adapted to the new COVID-19 reality, refocusing and restructuring a significant proportion of its staff and its effort on identifying & monitoring, tracking &, analysing, and preparing & responding to COVID-19 related social-unrest and violent conflict in Africa.
Through our networks across Africa, and supported by available online data, ACCORD identifies COVID-19 related incidents and trends that may provide early warning of rising tensions that could develop into social unrest and violent conflict. Once the incidents are captured in the dataset, ACCORD analyses the trends and publishes a weekly COVID-19 Africa Conflict and Resilience Monitor, in order to share the information and analysis with all stakeholders.
ACCORD then works with its in-country networks and other local, regional, continental and international partners and stakeholders, to encourage and support interventions aimed at mitigating, and where possible preventing, COVID-19 related social unrest and violent conflict.
We begin the first Monitor of 2023 with an article from Cedric de Coning, Research Professor at NUPI, Rui Saraiva a research fellow in the peacebuilding and humanitarian support team and Ako Muto, an executive senior research fellow both from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. The three authors write about adaptive peacebuilding, using case studies from Colombia and Mozambique.
We then head to West Africa for our next two pieces. Mariana Llorens Zabala has written an article on the effectiveness of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF). The article looks at the objectives of the MNJTF, African Union support to the MNJTF and gives an overall assessment of the effectiveness of the task force. Staying with West Africa, Joshua O. Bolarinwa writes about the elections in Nigeria and the context under which the election is taking place.
Moving to Southern Africa, Katharine Bebington, a programme officer at ACCORD writes about Eswatini. In her article she writes about the recent murder of human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko and the upcoming elections in the Kingdom.
After years of decline, conflict-related civilian deaths have increased sharply, and there are questions as to how the UN can better help prevent and manage conflict in an increasing complex and volatile peace and security environment
The overall assessment is that the MNJTF is, to a degree, effectively attaining its mandate priorities. As a result of the efforts of the MNJTF there is a decline in the number of terrorist attacks and fatalities in the region.
Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, on 25 February 2023, will hold its Presidential and National Assembly Elections; the 7th in the Fourth Republic (1999-2023).
If you are able to share information from your experiences on the ground with the crisis in Africa, we'd really like to hear from you. Please get in touch!
