New African Union Leadership and Security Challenges

[caption id="attachment_13226" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Soldiers of the Somali National Army at a training organized by AMISOM, the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Photo by AU-UN IST Photo / Stuart Price, via Flickr. Public Domain.[/caption]

On January 30, 2017, Chad's Moussa Faki Mahamat was elected the new chairperson of the African Union Commission, the executive body of the African Union (AU). Security issues, particularly internal conflicts and terrorism are high on the list of challenges facing the new chairperson. Expectations are high for the AU to consolidate its commitment for conflict prevention and resolution on the continent. Since its formal establishment in 2002, the AU has been a major player in African collective security. A review of the AU's agenda and activities during its first decade of existence confirms the predominance of issues related to peace and security.1 Compared to its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) , the AU has operated a real focus on security: it has created new security organs in the form of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA); and it has included in its Constitution2 the right of the Union to intervene in a member state in cases of war crimes, genocide, or crimes against humanity, but also in case of a "grave threat to the legitimate order" of a state, for example, in the case of a military coup. All these initiatives would have been much more difficult under the OAU, which held state sovereignty and non-interference as sacrosanct principles.

This radical positional shift on security issues from the OAU to the AU is underpinned by a Pan-Africanist ideology, according to which Africans should strive with pride to resolve problems facing the continent by themselves; as the motto states, "African solutions to African problems." This pride is legitimate. However, does the AU have the means to achieve its security ambitions? What financial and political challenges stand between the African Union and the achievement of "African solutions to African problems" in the realm of security?

The African Union's Holistic Approach to Security Issues

APSA has been developed as a holistic, continental, operational strategy involving a set of mechanisms and institutions to address security issues with better coordination between African countries. It is built around the following organs: a Peace and Security Council, a Panel of the Wise, a Continental Early Warning System, a Military Staff Committee, an African Standby Force, and a Peace Fund.3

APSA4 is based on an expanded concept of security that takes into account the "identification of and tackling the threats to the existence, development and sustenance of political, economic, military, human, and social, gender and environmental systems at State, regional and continental levels."5 This broad concept of security has the advantage of including the variety of causes of conflicts on the continent and, at the same time, legitimizing various political, military, economic, and environmental initiatives that the AU can undertake in response. However, if the scope of this broad approach demonstrates the importance given to security institutions and policies within the AU, it also does not hide the difficulties the AU will face in addressing these challenges. The new leadership at the AU will face the following challenges:

First, the lack of financial resources for peacekeeping operations limit the Union's capacity to emerge as genuine security actor on the continent. The AU budget and voluntary contributions from member states do not cover the financial needs for peace operations. Indeed, over 70 percent of the AU Commission is funded by outside donors. The European Union provides a little less than 25 percent of the funds itself. The other major contributors are Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the World Bank. With President Trump's election, there are serious concerns that the United States may reduce its financial contribution to AU peacekeeping operations, which would negatively impact the AU's operational capacity. Likewise, the rise of far-right politics within the European Union is no good news for the AU's Peace Fund.

Second, the African Standby Force, which is the military pillar of the APSA, also faces issues. The diversity of trainings and practices in the national armies and police forces of African states makes it difficult to undertake rapid intervention without a period of training and harmonization. Since October 2010, a training cycle called "Amani Africa" has sought ​​to harmonize the practices of African troops that will participate in peace operations on the continent, but funding constraints limit the capacity of the effort.

The third, and maybe most important, challenge facing APSA is political: the difficulty of forging a rapid consensus within the AU on major crises. This is explained by the great diversity of African countries, but also by the rivalry between some major states, such as South Africa and Nigeria, which vie for continental leadership. Rivalries between Anglophone and Francophone countries also impede the functioning of the Union's security organs. The AU is still too weak to impose its views and or exercise constraint on its member states. It remains an instrument that African powers are trying to control and use to advance their interests, an attitude that undermines collective security initiatives on the continent.

These are three core issues that African countries must deal with in order to ensure APSA achieves its potential. But the difficulties in implementing APSA also come from foreign powers with interests in Africa.

Foreign Powers: Between Cooperation and Resistance to APSA

Thanks to the global fight against terrorism, several foreign powers and multilateral organizations have intensified their security cooperation with African countries. But the contribution of these foreign actors to resolving a particular conflict are more dependent on their own interests than on strengthening the long-term security agenda of the AU (though their legitimating discourse may seem to say otherwise).6

Moreover, most of the major foreign powers have set up their own security arrangements on the continent without integrating them with APSA. The United States has established "Africa Command" (AFRICOM) in 2008, which aims to coordinate military operations and US security programs on the African continent. Rather than supporting the initiatives of the AU, the United States prefers direct bilateral relations with partner countries, a practice that increases the influence of the United States in Africa while diminishing the role of the AU as a coordinator for security efforts. Other foreign powers have pursued similar security strategies that increase their direct influence with individual African countries instead of diluting it through the mediation of the AU. Indeed, the NATO intervention in Libya illustrates how foreign powers are eager to preserve their influence in African affairs even against the will of the AU, which opposed the intervention.

The relationship between the United Nations and the AU is another mix of cooperation and resistance. The security apparatus of the AU is part of the peacekeeping mission of the United Nations under Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. The Protocol on the establishment of the Council for Peace and Security of the AU clearly states that it "cooperates and works closely with the United Nations Security Council, which has primary responsibility for maintaining peace and Security."7 But in practice, the UN Security Council is a political body whose main members are concerned about their influence in Africa. For instance, the AU's opposition to military intervention in Libya in 2011 was ignored by the UN Security Council.8 Therefore, the AU has no free hands to intervene in conflicts in the way it wishes even if she could afford it.

The future of APSA will depend on the ability of the AU's new leadership to negotiate and forge compromises with "African regional powers" and, more critically, with foreign powers whose influence is important on the continent. As Floris van der Beek noted, despite its weaknesses, the AU is a step ahead of the European Union in its development of continental peace and security structures: "In Africa, policymakers focused on the continuous implementation of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), while their European counterparts used resources to design new structures of defense and security." The path to African collective security is still long, but there is no doubt that the AU is underway.

Dr. Arsène Brice Bado, S.J., is Academic Secretary at Centre de Recherche et d'Action pour la Paix (CERAP), a member organization of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP), a Carnegie Corporation of New York-funded program of the Wilson Center, and a former SVNP Scholar.

1: Akokpari, John, "Limited capabilities, great expectations: The African Union and regional conflict management," in Stefan Wolff and Christalla Yakinthou (eds), Conflict management in divided societies. Theories and practice, London/New York: Routledge, 2012, pp.151-166.

2: See Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the AU, July 2000.

3: For a description of the role of each of these organs, see the Protocol on the establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on July 9th, 2002.

4: APSA was created with the adoption of the Protocol on the establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on July 9th, 2002.

5: African Union Commission, Strategic Plan 2009-2012, Addis Ababa, May 19, 2009, p.21.

6: See Naim, Ameur, "La Libye entre les intérêts de l'Occident et la résistance de Kadhafi," Outre-Terre, vol.3, no. 29, 2011, p.299.

7: Article 17(1) of the Protocol on the establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on July 9th, 2002.

8: De Waal, Alex, "African roles in the Libyan conflict of 2011," International Affairs, vol.89, no.2, 2013.