Public roundtable on resolving African conflicts
US-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) will host a public roundatble on Resolving African Conflicts: Towards An African Model of Peace Operations on Monday at the National Defense University in Washington DC.
Participants will include Cedric de Coning of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, Linnea Gelot of the Nordic Africa Institute and University of Gothenburg, Jide Okeke of the African Union Commission, Lise Morje Howard of Georgetown University as discussant while ACSS’ Dorina Bekoe will be the moderator.
A release from the ACSS noted that “Africa’s fast changing conflict environments compel new thinking on effective strategies for building peace. At the same time, the new security landscape reveal a widening gap between practice and theory, an absence of relevant stakeholders in the decision-making process, and the need for a reconceptualization of strategic intervention mechanisms. African leaders and institutions have stepped into this political and operational space, to produce the contours of a unique model of African peace operations, suited to the challenges and constraints facing the continent today.
“The current model of African peace operations, emerged from necessity, but requires a re-ordering of international relationships and institutional reforms in order to successfully build peace. Against this backdrop, some suggest the need for a reconfiguration of how the African Union, the United Nations, Regional Economic Communities, and African States interact with each other. Still others have called for a more robust reassessment of the security landscape and the strategic options available to African states. A new book, The Future of African Peace Operations: From the Janjaweed to Boko Haram, suggests a framework for policy makers and academics to explore these challenges in greater depth.”
