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.
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.
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.
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.
The COVID-19 crisis has wreaked havoc across the world and changed our understanding of the relationship between health and governance in many ways. With the virus having affected over 150 million people all over the world in a period of 12 months, it has become the biggest health crisis the world has faced in many decades.
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.
Tanzania’s COVID-19 strategy has been a mixed-bag of admission, denialism, pragmatism and tiptoeing. At the centre of this approach has been the country’s late President John Magufuli whose actions and statements defined the country’s COVID-19 policy.
Peace is undoubtedly the basis for the development of any society, especially for developing countries. In Africa, peace may be accepted as the absence of armed conflicts or the silence of weapons – even though poverty, the result of injustice and social inequalities, exacerbated by the unequal distribution of wealth, as well as corruption, unemployment and natural disasters, among other evils, are prevalent throughout the continent – and this much desired laying down of arms and absence of armed conflicts by a considerable number of African countries is an essential condition for combating poverty, restoring justice, socioeconomic and political stability, and sustainable development, including at regional and continental levels.
What can we learn from the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) for Cabo Delgado? One key lesson from the Somalia experience is that a security operation like AMISOM can create the opportunity for stabilisation, but for that opportunity to be turned into reality one needs a significant focus on political engagement, governance, rule of law, basic services and socio-economic development.