On 24th May 2021, news broke of yet another coup d’état in Mali, the third in the last decade following the 2012 and 2020 military takeovers. The ‘palace’ coup sees Col Assimi Goïta, yet again, seizing power in Mali and detaining transitional President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, after accusing them of failing in their duties and trying to sabotage Mali’s transition to democracy.
Thursday, 27 May 2021 marked a watershed moment for Somalia. It was the day Somali leaders met under the auspices of the National Consultative Council and announced a breakthrough in dialogue to resolve the impasse over the holding of federal elections. The deal provided an important implementation framework for the famous 17th September Agreement on parliamentary and presidential elections.
Following months of political impasse and rising tensions over the holding of elections in Somalia, the leaders of the Federal Government of Somalia and of the country’s Federal Member States signed a key agreement on 27 May that paves the way for elections. This was the culmination of several weeks of consensus-building efforts led by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble.
Since February, a series of rash political decisions took place that threw the country into chaos. Although the election deadlock has now been resolved and a new agreement reached on 27 May, the repercussions of the recent political drama are wide reaching.
On 27 May 2021, the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) and Federal Member States (FMS) signed a major agreement that would put the country back on an electoral pathway after months of intense political standoff over the type and process of elections. In late April, armed clashes broke out in the capital after the lower house of the bicameral parliament passed a controversial resolution extending its own mandate and that of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo by two years. The decision was rejected by almost all domestic political stakeholders in the country, as well as the overwhelming majority of the international community.
The expression “African Solutions for African problems” has become something of a cliché. It is frequently invoked when trying to develop effective solutions to address peace and security challenges on the continent. It is a phrase that has also been misused by some leaders to advance their interests while trying to avoid scrutiny of their actions in handling their own domestic peace and security challenges and invoking the phrase in an effort to engage the African Union (AU) to provide a face-saving mechanism which perhaps they hope to influence.
The key to a more stable and peaceful Africa lies in conflict prevention! Unfortunately, there is still reluctance, both by the international community and governments to invest in prevention. If we could focus more on prevention, much more could be achieved.
At the UN Security Council and in other forums in Africa and Europe, diplomats are debating different options for increasing international support to the G5 Sahel Force. The aim is to enhance its operational capacity and effectiveness to restore stability in the Sahel. Despite the presence of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the Group of Five Sahel (G5 Sahel) Force, as well as French and European Union missions, the security situation in the Sahel has significantly deteriorated over the last few years.
The conflict in the North of Cabo Delgado has been presented in international media as a phenomenon of terrorism and Islamic radicalization. This kind of analysis does not pay due attention to the political economy of the region, nor does it capture the complex internal and external causes of the phenomenon.
Indeed, in 2020, as we were planning to celebrate major instruments for the advancement of women’s rights to peace and development, namely the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic erupted, causing deaths and disruptions all over the world. The pandemic demonstrated once more that in times of crisis, women and girls bear the brunt of the impact and are the ones at the front of the risk.
We live in a peculiar moment in history in which prevailing threats to peace and stability have collided with a pandemic that occurs once in a century. For the African continent, it is rather a precarious moment in which our realities and limitations have come to the fore, more than in previous decades.
The changing conflict contexts have refocused our attention on the theory and practice of conflict management and the need for transforming the ways in which we seek to Silence the Guns in Africa. In the 1990s the conflict contexts demanded that peace be sought internally between identifiable warring parties with the ability to do harm, usually government and one or two rebel groups seeking access to political power; that mediation went beyond ceasefire agreements to deliver more comprehensive peace accords; and peacekeeping broadened to encompass multidimensional peace support operations.
For many Chadians, news of the sudden death of President Idris Déby Itno on 20 April 2021, crowned the past year as an annus horribilis, while sending shockwaves through the wider Sahel and around the world. Sixty-eight-year-old Déby, who took power in 1990 when his rebel forces deposed then-President and autocratic leader Hissène Habré, died from gunshot wounds sustained on the frontlines of fighting rebels belonging to a group called “Front pour l’alternance et la concorde au Tchad” (French acronym, FACT) in the north of Chad. The shock news came just a day after the veteran ruler won his sixth term as president amid boycotts from the main political opposition.
On the 8th of May 2021 the African Union (AU) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) convened a high level emergency meeting of African ministers. The purpose of the meeting was to review and reflect on the impact that COVID-19 has had on Africa and evaluate the implementation of the Joint Continental Strategy to combat the virus.
The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting negatively on the structure of governance around the world. As it shatters the lives and economies of many nations around the world, the virus has become a devastating and deadly behemoth of sort, collapsing systems and initiating more crises in our nations.
Collective system leadership has enabled some countries to successfully manage the onslaught and debilitating consequences of COVID-19. This approach could also be usefully applied to situations where attempts to build and sustain peace have failed.
From the start of its engagement in internal conflicts in the early 90’s, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) focused on conflict prevention. This was based on the assumption that prevention is better than a cure and that the United Nations (UN) was better equipped to deal with costly peacekeeping operations.
When in 2013, the devastating Ebola Virus Disease broke out in Guinea, it did not only spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia; it also threatened the world. By the time the outbreak ended in 2016, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, had lost over 11,000 people and $2.8 billion in GDP losses, according to the World Bank.