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Tag: AfSol

Regional Intervention in Fragile African States: Comparative Case Studies of South Sudan and Lesotho: Any Lessons Learnt?

Posted by admin | Apr 2, 2019 |

African conflicts have continued to be protracted and unresponsive, frustrating conventional interventions. Consequently, the concept of African Solutions for African-Centred Solutions (AfSol) has increasingly become the default alternative. To this end, politico-military crises in South Sudan and Lesotho in 2014 and the interventions by IGAD and SADC respectively, have shown remarkable similarities. South Sudan, saddled with an unclear leadership succession as the country approached the scheduled 2015 national election, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) National Liberation Council convention of December 2013 became a battleground that dragged the country into civil war. Curiously, the same happened in Lesotho when the country was faced with a vote-of-no-confidence in June 2014 and Prime Minister Thomas Thabane dismissed key government officials, prorogued the parliament and removed the Army Commander plunging the country into civil war. When each of the fragile states reached this stage, the sub-regional economic and security organisations (RECs) of IGAD and SADC, respectively, intervened. This paper assesses the implications and impact of those interventions, under the rubric of AfSol in order to discover any lesson learnt. Findings of this case study reveal that the philosophy of AfSol is a possible tool of intervention that could also be extrapolated to other conflict scenarios elsewhere on the African continent.

AMISOM and African-Centred Solutions to Peace and Security Challenges

Posted by admin | Apr 2, 2019 |

The success of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) seems to vindicate emerging scholarly and policy optimism regarding Africa’s potential to solve its peace and security problems through Africa-centred responses. To explain this African-led intervention’s success–despite Africa’s apparent institutional and resource limitations and in the context of the 1992-93 US-led Operation Restore Hope’s failures–this desk-based inquiry underlines the commitment, shared values, and ownership that typify AMISOM. I advance an “African-Centred Solutions” (AfSol) perspective that is rooted in Afro-optimist analyses which, basing on Africa’s past dealings with foreign actors, argues that “borrowed fists” cannot solve [most of] Africa’s security problems. Evidently, unlike non-Africa-centred interventions, AMISOM relied on the AfSol approach whose pillars–genuine commitment, shared Pan-African values, and a sense of ownership–engendered its success by incentivising states to withstand the Mission’s costs and to tirelessly mobilise foreign support. Throughout, Africans incorporated and reflected AfSol principles, by: initiating the Mission-building upon IGAD’s efforts; persisting amidst the Mission’s human, resource, and politico-security costs; involving both local and foreign Somalis; and integrating disparate intervention programmes into a single, AU-sanctioned Mission. AMISOM’s success underscores the need to harness Africa’s potential to address its peace and security challenges.