Religion and Peacebuilding in Sub-Saharan Africa

This chapter critically examines the contribution of religion to peacebuilding in Sub-Saharan Africa. An overview of the complex and evolving religious landscape of Africa today, where Christianity and Islam coexist alongside African traditional religions, is followed by an exploration of the intersection of secular and faith-based processes of peacebuilding in what remains a profoundly religious continent. Thirdly, this chapter probes the different ways religion has been appropriated or justified in the service of terror, notably in the case of the Central African Republic. Lastly, the chapter considers how religion-based efforts to mitigate conflict in Africa can be made more effective, especially Muslim-based initiatives, given the disproportionate impact on Africa’s Muslims.

Sustaining the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda: The Role of UN Peacekeeping in Africa

Peacebuilding is less likely to succeed without the participation and consideration of women. In the last two decades, peace operations deployed on the African continent under the banner of the United Nations and the African Union have included mandates focused on strengthening women’s participation in peace processes, ensuring the protection of women and girls, and integrating gender considerations into the approach of missions at building sustainable peace. This chapter examines the approaches undertaken in two case study countries—Liberia (where a long-standing UN peace operation has recently departed) and South Sudan (where a UN peace operation continues to operate with significant constraints)—in order to examine some of the challenges and opportunities that UN engagement has offered in terms of advancing equality and women’s security in each country.

Humanitarian Action and Peacebuilding: Incompatible or Complementary?

This chapter examines the changing role of humanitarian organizations in Africa’s conflict zones and how humanitarianism has become a highly contested space on the battlefield. Through an analysis of several ongoing peace operations in Africa, this chapter demonstrates how the principles of humanitarian relief have been undermined by the major powers and the UN in their pursuit of ostensibly noble objectives. Organizations and donors have become complicit in compromising humanitarianism, especially in multi-mandated UN missions, by inserting humanitarian workers into the realm of both service delivery (associated with the process of building a state) and as a political tool to win “hearts and minds.” Peacebuilding will be better served, the chapter concludes, by restoring humanitarianism to its original role and ethos.

Three Decades of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration of Ex-Combatants in Africa: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead

This chapter analyses three decades of efforts to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate ex-combatants as part of conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Africa. It finds that in the vast majority of Africa’s conflict-affected societies, reintegration remains the Achilles Heel of DDR programs; only a minority of ex-combatants are sustainably reintegrated into their communities. The chapter argues that the poor record of reintegration is due in significant part to unreliable and frequently-delayed external funding for this vital element of DDR. One response to the conundrum of growing demand but dwindling resources for reintegration would be to strengthen Africa’s ownership of DDR programs, endowing regional institutions (African Union and regional economic communities) with adequate institutional capacities, expertise, and resources.

Field Reflections on Post-Conflict Reconstruction: The Social Imperatives of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration

Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) and post-conflict reconstruction interventions have placed an inordinate emphasis on rebuilding the lives of ex-combatants, at the expense of the largely invisible mass of victims in communities, who often suffered as greatly or more than the active fighters. Ignored war’s aftermath, victims in communities end up being “punished twice.” This chapter, drawing heavily on the author’s leadership experience of DDR initiatives in Uganda and Burundi, seeks to highlight the myriad ways in which greater attention to war’s forgotten non-combatants is essential to heal societies, foster reconstruction and development, and prevent a recurrence of conflict.

The International Criminal Court’s Impact on Peacebuilding in Africa

This chapter examines the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its intersections with two widespread domestic conflict resolution processes in Africa: national amnesties and peace negotiations. In doing so, it connects to two overarching scholarly and policy debates, namely the appropriateness and legality of amnesties as opposed to prosecutions for suspected perpetrators of international crimes, and the “peace versus justice” debate over whether the threat of prosecution imperils peace negotiations that involve high-level atrocity suspects. This chapter focuses on the ICC’s first two—and therefore most developed—situations in northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with secondary reference to Rwanda, South Sudan, and other conflict-affected states in Africa. The chapter concludes with some lessons from the ICC’s interventions for recrafting international criminal justice in support of the wider pursuit of peace.

Peace Management and Conflict Resolution: A Practitioner’s Perspective

This chapter provides a firsthand perspective on the broad issues of prevention and mediation of conflicts, with special reference to two conflict environments outside Africa—Cyprus, Myanmar—and one at its heart (Darfur), where the author was deployed as a senior envoy of the United Nations Secretary General. The aim is to provide a global view on best practice for peacebuilding in Africa against the backdrop of three fundamental shifts in conflict in the post-Cold War era: from inter- to intra-state war; from primarily state-based to non-state actors; and from largely mono- to multi-causal understandings of why wars begin and end. It provides key recommendations on improving mediation, strengthening relations between the UN and NGOs, and dealing with spoilers

Learning Lessons from Peace Operations in Africa

This chapter reflects on the experiences of more than fifty peace operations deployed to nearly twenty African countries during the twenty-first century to identify key lessons, best practices, and potential solutions that might make peace operations in Africa more effective. It does so in three parts. The first section summarizes the major trends and patterns of peace operations focusing on the record number of missions and peacekeepers deployed in Africa, as well as the expanded range of mandated tasks given to them. The second section summarizes the major generic lessons arising therefrom, including: the need to ensure peace operations are part of a viable strategy of conflict resolution; that means and ends are aligned; that a capabilities and effects-based approach to force generation is superior to a numbers-centric approach. The final section sketches six recommendations for improving the performance of peace operations in these areas.

Violence, Peacebuilding, and Elite Bargains in Mozambique Since Independence

This chapter provides a unique account of Mozambique’s long, often fraught peacebuilding journey, from the end of its 16-year civil war in 1992 through fifteen years of relative stability despite extreme poverty, corruption and social dislocation, to recent peace negotiations between the ruling FRELIMO party and its rebel nemesis—RENAMO. It examines the diverse initiatives—from financial and diplomatic to the contribution of church-based mediation and grassroots initiatives for justice and reconciliation—that brought the parties to a negotiated settlement, against a backdrop of changing regional and international dynamics. In some ways, the chapter concludes, FRELIMO’s landslide victory in 2019 is likely to complicate the elite bargaining that has helped Mozambique avoid any large-scale recurrence of violence.

Lessons in Failure: Peacebuilding in Sudan/South Sudan

Common to most protracted conflicts that relapse into war is a disconnect between elites and local communities, which typically suffer the most when the former undermine peace agreements to further their own narrow interests. The central argument in this chapter, drawing heavily on the recent history of Sudan/South Sudan and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), is that African conflict resolution and peacebuilding relies too heavily on political agreements between politico-military elites. These deals focus largely on elite power and resource-sharing arrangements. Mostly ignored are the communal and societal dynamics that initially fed the violence. Sudan/South Sudan’s persistent conflict and instability is a prime example of what happens when peace agreements are signed without due regard for the true nature and genesis of the conflict.