If there was ever a moment in the history of humanity that calls for the deepening of dialogue across different nations, generations, and cultures about a world that we want to see, the year 2020 is that moment. Instead of allowing the disruptions created by the emergence and spread of COVID-19 to weaken our collective resolve to find creative solutions to the challenges we commonly face, we ought to be inspired by the creativity, the innovations, and the resilience that ordinary people across the world have attempted to create.
Recognition of the nexus between foreign policy and public health is not new; it has found episodic expression that tended to dissipate, only to re-emerge with time. This has been the case because traditional notions of advancing national interests through foreign policy have tended to be anchored around the fields of trade and defence, with health seen as part of so-called “low politics”. This has tended to underplay the foreign policy dimensions of health.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted peace operations. In the short term, activities have been reduced to the most critical, rotations have been frozen and most staff are working remotely. Most of the missions have adapted remarkably well. However, even more changes are likely in the medium term, when the global economic recession that is expected to follow in the wake of the virus may force peace operations to contract drastically in size and scope.
The contributions at the 14th Extra-Ordinary Summit on Silencing the Guns served to reaffirm the commitment of the current leadership of the continent to the moral and political duty given to us by our forebears to achieve an Africa free of conflict. The summit was able to answer some critical questions on the actions we must now take to advance this responsibility, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is no getting around it: the COVID-19 crisis will hit Africa’s people particularly hard. Even if the infection rate remains low, the socio-economic devastation is already being felt. Access to clean water supplies and basic health services remain a challenge throughout the continent, making the containment measures taken by most countries all the more challenging. Beyond the immediate health concerns, the pandemic is triggering a global economic slowdown, which will severely hamper Africa’s development ambitions and curtail a successful two decades of macro-economic improvements and social gains.
Twenty-five elections were scheduled for 2020 in Africa. While some states chose to postpone their elections, citing COVID-19, others opted to continue. Holding elections during a pandemic has resulted in a number of new challenges. Some states have exhibited resilience by managing to conduct well-run elections, despite COVID-19. However, in other cases, attempts to conduct elections during the COVID-19 pandemic have increased tensions, undermined trust in democracy and contributed to election-related violence.
In the first week of December 2020, two key meetings were held that will impact significantly on the coming year’s peace and security agenda in Africa. The first was the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) High-Level Debate on the cooperation between the UN and regional and sub-regional organisations. The second noteworthy meeting was the African Union’s (AU) 14th Extraordinary Session on Silencing the Guns in Africa. While held separately, both meetings have informed and will direct the priorities and activities of peace actors across the African continent. The departure point dictating the synergies between the two meetings is how to leverage the partnerships among the UN, AU and regional and sub-regional organisations to silence the guns in Africa. This multi-stakeholder approach offered through institutional cooperation to silence the guns is increasingly important in a context where COVID-19 has acted as a force multiplier in several existing conflicts on the continent.
The African Union Heads of State and Government had marked the year 2020 with the theme “Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa’s Development”. As a flagship project of Agenda 2063, Silencing the Guns by 2020 was adopted in 2013 during the Organisation of African Unity/African Union 50th Commemorative Anniversary Summit of African Heads of State. The vision of the 2013 Solemn Declaration was to achieve the goal of a conflict-free Africa, to make peace a reality for all our people and to rid the continent of wars and civil conflicts.
The human toll of the COVID-19 pandemic has been more limited in Africa than elsewhere. At the same time, the pandemic has exacerbated existing threats, fragilities and vulnerabilities – including in North Africa, the second-worst affected region of the continent – hindering international efforts to sustain peace, especially in conflict-affected settings such as Libya. The socio-economic impact of COVID-19 has also been significant, leading countries in the region to adopt a range of response measures with a view towards strengthening the resilience of societies and economies in the face of the pandemic.
Tensions between the Ethiopian government and regional government of Tigray came to a head on 3–4 November, after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked a federal government position in Mekelle, Tigray’s capital. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed responded immediately with air strikes and ground attacks. While the underlying causes of the conflict relate to competing visions over the nature of the Ethiopian state, the immediate cause of the fighting was the National Election Board of Ethiopia’s (NEBE) decision in March to indefinitely postpone the elections that were scheduled for August 2020, due to COVID-19.
COVID-19 has significantly impacted peace processes in Africa, but it has also offered opportunities, however small, for peace. On 23 March 2020, United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) António Guterres made an appeal, echoed by African Union (AU) Chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa, for a global ceasefire in an effort to redirect attention and resources to fighting COVID-19. In the context of the AU’s campaign to “Silence the Guns”, the UNSG explained that ceasefires would create more space for humanitarian services and diplomatic intervention in conflict areas. While experiences of conflict on the African continent may have presented conditions that are highly unlikely to result in any immediate ceasefires, some African cases have presented significant and interesting responses to the UNSG’s call. This piece briefly examines the trajectory of the seven African cases of ceasefires in relation to COVID-19, and looks at the implications for silencing of the guns.
Climate change is contributing to shaping the security and development context around the Lake Chad Basin. The governance deficits, underdevelopment and socio-economic plight of communities living in the Lake Chad Basin have been further exacerbated by environmental stresses and, most recently, also by the COVID-19 pandemic. Climate-related droughts exacerbate water shortages and related stresses, aggravate existing social vulnerabilities and impair the abilities of communities to adapt to changes in their social-ecological systems.