African Union Peace & Security Framework and Mechanisms

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Peace and Security Directorate
African Union Commission
P.O. Box 3243
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Tel: +251-11-5517700
Fax: +251-11-5517844

Website: http://www.africa-union.org

Amb. Said Djinnit, Commissioner, Peace & Security, djinnits@africa-union.org
Mr. Geoffrey Mugumya, Director, Peace & Security Directorate, gmugumya@africa-union.org
Mr. El Ghassim Wane, Head, Conflict Management Division (CMD), Peace & Security Directorate, ewane@africa-union.org
Mr. Bereng Mtimkulu, Head, Peace Support Operations Division (PSOD), Peace & Security Directorate, bmtimkulu@africa-union.org
Dr. Admore Kambudzi, Head, Peace & Security Council Secretariat (PSCS), Peace & Security Directorate, akambudzi@africa-union.org

Description

Addressing conflicts has always been a priority area for Africa’s premier continental organization. Under the Organization of African Unity (OAU), member states recognized peace and security as a core continental agenda when in June 1993 they signed the Cairo Declaration establishing the Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution Mechanism. Yet it took another decade for the OAU’s policy of non-interference and non-aggression to yield to a new doctrine of intervention.

As articulated in the Constitutive Act establishing the African Union (AU), African countries, acting through specific organs, now officially have the right to intervene to restore peace and security in grave circumstances of genocide, gross violations of human rights, national instability with cross-border ramifications, and unconstitutional changes of government. Article 3, paragraphs f and g, of the Constitutive Act states that the AU shall “promote peace, security and stability on the continent…, democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance".

Although the AU’s expanded mandate allows for programming in a wide range of thematic areas—including economic affairs, social affairs, gender, trade and industry and governance—peace and security remains at the core and assumes the highest prominence in AU Commissions 2004–2007 Vision, Mission and Strategic Framework.

The AU’s peace and security framework is spelled out in the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union, which entered into force on 26 December 2003, putting in place a new standing body to replace the OAU Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution Mechanism. As outlined in Article 3 of the Protocol, the objectives of the PSC are to:

• Promote peace, security and stability in Africa, in order to guarantee the protection and preservation of life and property, the well-being of the African people and their environment, as well as the creation of conditions conducive to sustainable development;
  
• Anticipate and prevent conflicts. In circumstances where conflicts have occurred, the Peace and Security Council shall have the responsibility to undertake peacemaking and peace building functions for the resolution of these conflicts;
  
• Promote and implement peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction activities to consolidate peace and prevent the resurgence of violence;
  
• Coordinate and harmonize continental efforts in the prevention and combating of international terrorism in all its aspects;
  
• Develop a common defense policy for the Union, in accordance with Article 4(d) of the Constitutive Act;
  
• Promote and encourage democratic practices, good governance and the rule of law, protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for the sanctity of human life and international humanitarian law, as part of efforts for preventing conflicts.

The 15-member PSC is the AU’s pivotal decision-making body on conflict and crisis, and can meet at heads of state, ministerial or permanent representatives’ levels depending on the situation at hand. Three PSC sub-organs are in the process of being established to support the PSC—a Panel of the Wise, to be made up of five prominent Africans whose role will be to engage in preventive diplomacy and mediation; a Continental Early Warning System, designed to enhance the PSC’s conflict prevention effectiveness through the provision of timely information; and an African Standby Force, effectively for peacekeeping and peace enforcement made up of troops from AU member states organized at sub-regional level into five brigades. A Military Staff Committee made up of African Defence Attachés in Addis Ababa advises the Directorate and AU Chairperson on military matters.

The PSC and its sub-organs are serviced and supported by the AU’s Peace and Security Directorate (PSD), tasked with putting in place the architecture to ensure more effective African management of crises. Current priorities include the setting up of the African Standby Force, operationalization of the Panel of the Wise, development of the Continental Early Warning System, and the implementation of a recently approved Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development Framework.

Track Record

The AU has steadily and consistently sought to play a more operational role in the peace support operations field, as illustrated by recent engagements in Burundi, Comoros, Somalia and Sudan. In contrast to the ad hoc nature of previous initiatives initiated by the OAU, such as in Chad and Rwanda, recent peace support engagements have been formalized and to an extent systematized. As a result—and where in the past regional economic communities such as ECOWAS and SADC were seen as the preferred ports of call—AU is gaining kudos as a prime mover in addressing Africa’s conflicts.

The African Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which deployed in June 2004 to monitor compliance with the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement, constitutes the AU’s most visible engagement in peace support operations to date. Despite the enormity of the logistical, financial, and political challenges, AMIS was able to deploy rapidly, remains the only international monitoring presence on the ground in Darfur, and provides a framework for international engagement. The 7,000-strong force is in the process of transforming into a hybrid UN/AU Mission.

The deployment of the African Mission in Burundi (AMIB) in April 2003, the AU’s first foray into peace operations, was in direct fulfillment of the Constitutive Act’s provision for the AU to act in grave circumstances, particularly in situation where the international community was reluctant to engage. Despite a number of challenges, AMIB achieved its mission by create the necessary conditions for the deployment of a UN mission, which came in June 2004. Despite not having an explicit mandate to protect civilians, AMIB developed rules of engagement that allowed it to intervene to protect civilians “in imminent danger of serious injury or death”.

Following a 2001 power-sharing agreement brokered by the OAU, the AU deployed a 462-strong force, AMISEC, to support elections in the Comoros in May 2006, providing an important security presence that eased the passage of democracy

A significant success is the PSC itself, which, since being launched in May 2004, has quickly become a dynamic forum for decision-making on continental peace and security issues. Some of the PSC’s sub-organs, notably CEWS, are in the process of being established, while progress has been registered on a number of other fronts.

Challenges

Despite the successes to date, a big question remains as to whether the AU has the capacity to consistently play an operational role in managing peace support operations. So far, the PSC has focused disproportionately on Darfur. In part, this reflects the complexity of the engagement in Sudan, currently Africa’s biggest conflict. However, it also points to the fact the AU’s peace and security machinery cannot focus effectively on more than one trouble spot at a time—with other conflicts, in Cote D’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and most recently Somalia taking a relative back seat.

Capacity: The AU’s expansive peace and security mandate far exceeds its human capacity to deliver. The PSD is by far the busiest unit in the Addis Ababa-based secretariat, accounting for the lion’s share of AU budgetary resources (see below). In the past 18 months a dedicated secretariat has been set up to service meetings of the PSC. Another pool of analysts resides in the CMD and is responsible for generating ongoing timely, cutting edge analysis. Yet although the PSD is much better staffed than the AU Commission’s other directorates the numbers pale in comparison to the sheer size of the agenda and the multiple fronts on which the staff are expected to engage. The PSOD, for example—supporting arguably the most labor- and capital-intensive aspect of the agenda—is still not at full capacity. The PSD employs a variety of mechanisms, some highly unstable, to recruit and retain staff, and it is by and large unable to implement a results-driven staffing strategy. In view of this incrementalist strategy, the right people are often not in place at the right time. Recruitment routinely takes between 6 months and a year.

Funding: Systemic shortfalls between the AU Commission’s proposed budget and amounts approved by member states illustrate the gap between the AU’s ambition and its actual ability to deliver. Of the US$570 million proposed by the Commission for its 2005 budget, member states only approved US$158.4 million, little more than a quarter of what was requested. Of this amount, US$63 million came from assessed member states contributions, which support the AU’s operational and running costs. For the remaining nearly US$100 million, the AU Commission relied on voluntary contributions from member states (the key donors being Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and south Africa, each of whom contribute 15 percent of the budget), and grants from external donors.

The so-called ‘Maputo Structure’, the core staffing member states deemed to be adequate to deliver the AU vision and agreed to fund from their contributions, only covers a fraction of the AU Commission’s needs. In the context of the PSD, this amounts to a situation in which critical posts, including those of PSC secretariat members and political analysts in the CMD, are funded from less stable extra-budgetary sources. As a result, up to 80 percent of PSD posts are estimated to be funded from outside the regular AU budget.

While the AU’s peace and security agenda is attracting substantial interest, there is as yet no coherent approach to how it should be supported. While the EU contributes to the Peace Fund from its Africa Peace Facility, and UNDP has funded a multi-year Capacity Building Project, other G8 donors prefer to provide project funding, technical assistance, and equipment. This imposes a sizeable transaction cost on the PSD as it is forced to manage multiple donor relations and different pots of money. Despite this transaction cost, and although it is rhetorically committed to the principle of basket funding as a way of streamlining donor support, the PSD’s preference is to maintain bilateral arrangements, allowing it greater flexibility and the ability to create a competitive donor market for support to the AU peace and security agenda. The irony of the situation is that although the PSD cannot absorb the proliferation of extra-budgetary funds on which it is increasingly dependent, all it can hope for in the foreseeable future is more piecemeal support.

AU peace support operations still lack a predictable funding source, in contrast with the UN, which has a dedicated peacekeeping budget funded from member states’ assessed contributions. To date the AU has relied on the EU Peace Facility and other bilateral contributions to fund ongoing peace support operations. There has been limited financial support for these operations from member states, raising major concerns as to the sustainability of African peacekeeping. Major international donors are currently exploring ways in which UN assessed contributions could be used to support the AMIS mission. If the UN Security Council endorses this approach it may provide a precedent for future funding. There is however likely to be a great deal of resistance from key UN member states, who bear the brunt of peacekeeping costs, to opening the way for UN funding for AU operations.

Until a coherent coordination framework has been developed and a mechanism put in place to ensure that donors funds support, rather that drive, the AU’s peace and security agenda, the extra-budgetary resources the PSD is attracting are unlikely to be optimally effective. And yet, as long as institutional capacity remains thin, the likelihood is that donors will continue to skew priorities. Furthermore, the PSD, and the AU Commission more broadly, has not yet articulated an exit strategy from the aid-dependent status quo.

Civil Society: A distinguishing feature of the AU, as opposed to the OAU, is its strong rhetorical commitment to the building of a “people-centered Union”, and the creation of mechanisms, such as the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) to enshrine civil society participation involvement in the affairs of the AU Commission. On peace and security, specific provisions exist for civil society participation. Article 20 of the Protocol establishing the PSC states that it “… shall encourage non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations and other civil society organizations, particularly women’s organizations, to participate actively in the efforts aimed at promoting peace, security and stability in Africa. When required, such organizations may be invited to address the Peace and Security Council”. In reality, however, the crowded AU agenda and competing demands for resources mean that ways of concretely interfacing with civil society have not yet been developed, and the PSC agenda remains a largely state-driven project.

Opportunities

With bilateral and multilateral donor interest in the PSD already high, private foundations need to think carefully as to precisely how they can invest in this area, and as to what value they can add.

Institutional strengthening is an important prerequisite to the effective functioning of the AU Commission, yet a number of donor-funded efforts in this area having failed in the past. The inherently political nature of AU program development and agenda setting makes investment in this area difficult. And yet without a comprehensive, well-funded and sustainable institutional strengthening program it is unlikely the AU Commission will function to its full potential.

A number of major donors already support the institutional strengthening program. Nevertheless, and given the slow progress and patchy commitment by bilateral and multilateral donors as well as the AU itself to date, it might constitute a worthwhile investment for private foundations to explore the possibility of investing in the long-term capacity building of the Commission. Given the complexity of the issue and existing donor initiatives, a first step could entail a preliminary study to identify the problems at hand, review lessons from previous institutional reform efforts, and propose ways in which the foundations can add value. Such an initiative would necessarily have to go beyond the PSD, to address the AU Commission as an integrated whole.

Another approach could be to leave institutional strengthening to existing donors and concentrate the foundations’ efforts in supporting policy development within the PSD. There are a number of policy areas identified in the PSD’s priority program, some of which are currently under-prioritized and under-funded, among them security sector transformation, natural resources and conflict, and sustained mediation for post-conflict transitions. Such support could also assist in establishing a more coherent set of priorities as the current plan is still a long way from constituting a prioritized set of relevant and achievable activities.

Foundations could also help foster stronger and more systematic civil society engagement with the emerging AU peace and security architecture, perhaps as part of a broader effort that takes into account existing mechanisms, such as ECOSOCC.