Africa Up Close

Hardly had South African President Cyril Ramaphosa settled into his chairmanship of the African Union (AU) and his compatriot, Wamkele Mene, assumed leadership as Secretary-General (SG) of the fledgling and still largely aspirational African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement before both began to face a baptism by fire in the form of the United States’ and Kenya’s intent to pursue their own bilateral free trade agreement—a formidable challenge to the AfCFTA. How Ramaphosa as 2020 AU Chair and Mene as AfCFTA’s first SG confront this bilateralist challenge to continental trade integration will determine much about the AfCFTA’s future as Africa’s flagship for achieving global economic power status within the world’s fast-shifting geo-economic/strategic landscape.

The Atlantic Ocean along a shoreline in Ifni, Morrocco. Picture courtesy of mbohl via Flickr Commons. 

African peace and security challenges in relation to the continent’s wider maritime scope and its interplay with external political actors receive little attention. Yet, much of the internal politics that affect peacebuilding in Africa involve interregional actors, such as Europe and the Mideast. This lack of attention is not seen in the South Atlantic where the Zone of Peace and Cooperation in the South Atlantic (ZPCSA), operates as a multilateral platform between some African and South American nations. The ZPCSA’s goal is preserving regional peace and a nuclear-free-zone in regions where documented illegal trafficking flows link South America, West Africa, and Europe, and security challenges plague the Gulf of Guinea, a transport nexus in the Afro-Atlantic oil trade.

A Ghanaian peacekeeper with the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). Photo by United Nations Photo, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

After a 33-year absence, Morocco rejoined the African Union (AU) in January 2017. Morocco had left the union due to a conflict over Western Sahara, an area which Morocco controls but the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) claims independence for. Morocco’s re-entry into the AU has raised the inter-African political stakes several notches, as it brings a new strategy for occupying Western Sahara at the expense of the SADR. The goal: SADR de-recognition by the AU.

Once-and-current Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, center-left, walks with now-former Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, center-right, ahead of a 2014 budget speech. Photo by Government Communication and Information System, South Africa, Creative Commons via Flickr.

In post-colonial Africa there has been a tendency for personalized autocratic rule to capture the state in maximizing incumbent vested interests. This has been at the expense of constitutional government, competent governance, and broad-based development. This has been the path to state failure—and worse—for many a country in (nominally) post-colonial Africa. Advancing the national interest takes a back seat to the cronyism of patronage in advancing dominant elite interest. This, however, was never expected to befall ‘The Beloved Country.’

As Burundi implodes due to yet another instance of African misgovernance, South African President Jacob Zuma, in the wake of South Africa’s second bout of xenophobic violence (the first being in 2008), warned his peers to take responsibility for the problem of migration. They “cannot shy away” from reasons citizens are fleeing from home.

The biggest African Elephant in the trans-Mediterranean room shared by Africa and Europe is the non-functioning of the African Union’s northern pillar, the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA). It is little wonder then that it is nowhere to be found when it is needed by all stakeholders with a security interest in trans-regional stability on both sides of the Mediterranean. Of course everyone knows why the UMA is the invisible regional economic community (REC) of the African Union (AU): the ‘frozen conflict’ of stalemate in the Western Sahara between Morocco, the Sahrawis and Algeria.

On November 17, 2014, the Minister of Constitutional Affairs under President Nelson Mandela and Chairman of the South African Defence Review (2011-14), Roelf Meyer, opens a two day symposium on the challenges of southern oceans governance and economic opportunities while exploring maritime security and naval cooperation issues. Co-hosted by The Institute of Global Dialogue at the University of South Africa (IGD-UNISA) and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation: Policy Research and Analysis Unit in partnership with the Open Society Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and its Southern African Defence and Security Management network, the symposium’s theme covers: ‘The Blue Economy and Maritime Security challenges in South and Southern Africa: Leadership dilemmas in promoting a global South dialogue on Indian and South Atlantic Oceans governance.’

At the recent BRICS Summit, Leaders announced new initiatives, including a New Development Bank (NDB) for infrastructure and sustainable development.  In the same timeframe, China will join with its allies to launch a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).  These initiatives provide a counter-point to the US-led World Bank and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank.

The 6^th annual BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit held July 14-16 this year in Fortaleza, Brazil, marked a crucial milestone for this historic grouping. It marked beginning of the institutionalization process of its core objective, global economic reform, with the unveiling of the ‘New Development Bank’ (NDB) and Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA). Mainstream financial media may be wary of the Fortaleza Declaration, with its tendency to question revisionist non-Western initiatives that appear against the status-quo of a Western-dominated global economy. But this is shortsighted. Rome was not built in a day.

On May 7, 2014, 17 million South African streamed to the polls to cast their votes for National, Provincial, and Municipal level leaders. Except for a few minor disturbances and one large protest in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, the day went without incident. The elections are being hailed as an “overwhelming” or “decisive” victory for the African National Congress (ANC). In fact, by almost any democratic standard, the ANC did blow its opposition away, taking 62.15% of the national vote and winning 8 out of 9 provinces, as well as the vast majority of municipalities. One can forgive the street celebrations that burst out in Johannesburg and elsewhere, and the speech the President Zuma made taking his naysayers to task with no small show of swag. The ANC is fully in charge, even though its parliamentary majority has been chipped down a bit, and shows every sign of striding into the next 5-year term with confidence.