by Ambassador Sam B. Ibok,
Director of Political Affairs Department (OAU)
Addis Ababa, 3 March 2002

This presentation takes its point of departure from the end of the cold war when the United Nations, the OAU and other international as well as regional organizations assumed greater responsibility for responding more comprehensively to the challenges of the post-cold war era, particularly, as they relate to the political and socio-economic developments on the continent.

My brief intervention is premised upon certain fundamental assumptions that are critical to the construction of a new paradigm upon the future relationship between the AU, the UN, regional and supra-regional organizations can be designed.

The first of these assumptions relates to the fact that even though the OAU and its Charter came into existence as continental frameworks for the promotion of the African collective will to ensure collective security and collective development, we had been unable in over thirty years to craft a comprehensive security architecture to drive the peace and security Agenda of the Continent. This is in spite of the provisions of the Charter itself and also, more importantly, in spite of the establishment in Cairo in 1993, of a Continental Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution.

The second assumption is that the AU, in spite of the absence of clarity on a shared vision for the future in Africa, and in spite of the absence or lack of the development so far, of shared goals for the continent, the AU will emerge as the strongest catalyst for African integration and development.

The third assumption is that there is a political will under the AU, to ensure that our continent which has been caught in a web of profound political and social turmoil, is now in a position to provide a radically different political framework, with great promise for resolving disputes and subsuming ethnic and even racial differences to bring about genuine integration.

In terms of regional security, the potentially favourable post-cold war situation of the early 90's, has been more than offset by the reopening of old "fault lines" and the exacerbation of long-standing and deep-rooted grievances. Consequently, the enormous economic opportunities and the potentials of Africa remain largely unrealized and our leaders are made to continuously go begging as if the rest of the world owes us a living. It is so bad that even the most promising developments on the continent, the establishment of the AU and NEPAD, have so far failed to resolve these contradictions and move Africa into a pedestal where we can realize our aspirations for peace, development and integration.

My next assumption is that there is a genuine political will to move beyond paying lip service to the strengthening of cooperative relations between the OAU-AU and the UN, other regional and supra-regional organizations. In the particular case of the UN, the assumption here is that the AU has no choice but to work very closely with the world body, which has a mandate for the maintenance of global peace and security. However, the reverse is also true. The regional organizations are the pillars upon which the UN must anchor its global peace Agenda. It must therefore be a given, that the UN needs the cooperation and even the partnership of regional organizations like the AU, if it is to be fully effective in meeting its obligations to the peoples of the continent. It is no exaggeration, to state that of all the regions of the world, there is none like Africa, where the UN and its agencies are required. In any case, not so much in Europe, and definitely, not in the Americas, perhaps in Asia and in the Middle East. And when you look at the sum total of UN engagements in the world, this assertion becomes more self-evident.

Clearly, therefore the capacity of the international community to assist Africa in the resolution of the problems confronting the continent are largely resident in the United Nations system, the OAU/AU, sub-regional collective security arrangements and non-governmental organizations as well as the civil society at large.

In phrasing the objective of this presentation paper in this form, the assumption therefore is that international institutions through which we mediate diverse national interests can be adapted for the furtherance of what I would call, a culture of humanness.

A corollary assumption is that the stakeholders in command and control of decision-making positions in international institutions are all committed to providing equal opportunity or to ensuring the extension of the greatest happiness to the greatest numbers and humanity at large. Such a normative construction of the problem is functional for the purpose of providing a perspective and appreciating international collective security policy paradigms and their prospects for the populations in Africa, who in this instance, look to these institutions as possible support and resource for effecting their participation in an increasingly globalizing democratic community.

My last assumption is that there is a linkage between development, democracy, human rights and peace. Such a linkage is now being more widely articulated than ever before. This synthesis argues that peace cannot exist without development and development cannot proceed without peace, short-circuiting the old north-south "development versus security" debate. What is needed by the AU, the UN and regional organizations is the development in Africa, of what I prefer to call a fairer process, that is a process which is capable of reducing grievances before they grow into major problems, one which allows people to have a say in decision-making and which safeguards and promotes their civil, political, economic and cultural rights, and provides a pluralist environment in which Africans can live together in peace, with the freedom and opportunity to develop in all ways. This fairer process is good governance.

To put our discussion into context, let me pose a couple of questions that have been begging for answers:

Why is an African country, and I do not need to mention the name, on the top of the list of countries with an aggravated problem of internally displaced persons?

Why is it that of the about 42 countries constituting the principal sources of the world's refugees and asylum seekers, more than half of that number are Africans?

Why is Africa potentially the richest continent on earth, in terms of natural resource endowment, the poorest of the continents, with the poorest peoples? Indeed, why are the potentially richest countries on the continent, experiencing one form of instability or the other? Africa stands out as the most volatile continent and one most vulnerable to threats or actual violent conflicts. I will desist from going into the statistics which could be very discomfiting. We need to move beyond data collection and analysis. We can no longer plead ignorance. What are needed are policy frameworks and the strengthening of international cooperative arrangements, between the Union, the UN and regional organizations, given that the African Union cannot and will not resolve these problems on its own.

My presentation focuses on two sides of the same coin signifying the crisis that will confront the new African Union. The one face is the continent's stalled development, while the other face of the same coin is the epidemic of mass violent conflicts whose causes are well-known and which cataclysmic interaction continue to frustrate all the planned efforts to improve the well-being of Africans. Fortunately, the establishment of the African Union and the initiative of the UN Secretary General, which resulted in the presentation and follow-up of the Report on "the causes of conflict and the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa" have proved that the causes and effects of the problems in Africa, are now squarely on the agenda of the African Union, the UN and regional organizations statecraft. These concerns continue to generate worrisome patterns.

It is stating the obvious, when I make the point that the African Union must seek to expand and deepen its cooperation and consultations with other regional and supra-regional organizations such as the European Union, the League of Arab States and the Regional Mechanisms to mention but a few. The Union should at a very early stage, both at the political and institutional levels, see the UN, and regional organizations as partners, in a shared agenda of peace and development.

In this endeavour, I see the strong need to revisit the definition of the spheres of action by the UN, the OAU, other sub-regional and supra-regional organizations. It is my conviction that the roles of these organizations should be governed by the UN Charter stipulation as clearly defined in Chapter VIII. That provision, apart from resting the primary responsibility for international security with the UN, encourages the assumption by regional organizations of responsibility for the pacific settlement of disputes in their regions, either on their own initiative or in collaboration with the UN.

I see also the need to define and more clearly design a structure of relationship between the African Union, the UN and regional organizations at three organizational levels, based on a clear understanding of the comparative advantage that each organization/institution has. For instance in the immediate future, I do not believe that the Union will have any comparative advantage in the conduct of peacekeeping operations. On the other hand, the Union will have a great deal of scope for action, if not comparative advantage, in advocacy, preventive action and peacemaking. It is in this area that the African Union should focus its efforts in the short and medium term.

While effective military operations cannot be undertaken by the African Union at this stage, it must also be recognized that for reasons that are well known, the commitment and rapidity of response by the UN is often not sufficient for dealing with crises in Africa at the early stages. The delayed reaction of the UN in Rwanda, Liberia, the DRC, etc. reveals that it is often not the gravity and dimension of a crisis that determines the timing and adequacy of international response. Other considerations do often delay or dilute the type of responses that are called for. This provides the strongest rationale for supporting the development by the AU and sub-regional organizations in Africa, of internal African capacities for robust peace support operations.

Presently, therefore the regional level appears to be the most likely point, where such robust actions are possible because it is often easier to generate the political will to act, since problems often impact upon the neighbourhood. I believe that there will be instances when regional organizations will have greater legitimacy to act than the African Union or the UN. Experience informs us that it may well be the case that the RECs are best placed to act first followed by the Union and the UN later. Hence, the need for greater coordination and for analysis of which bodies might be best placed to act at what phase of a given problem.

I do not want to be misunderstood, it is also true that in many situations, neighbours are often involved and have interests that prejudice the manner in which they try to end the problem. While regional involvement is clearly a double-edged sword, the African Union must position itself in such a way that it can oversee and provide checks and balances to the manner of regional involvement in a peace operation that helps to temper actions by neighbours that are aimed at enhancing their self interests as was the case in Liberia and currently in the Great Lakes region. Indeed, as Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, former Secretary General of the OAU, once stated, between the UN and sub-regional organizations, lies the OAU/AU as a regional entity for resolving problems. The biggest advantage therefore of having the African Union midway, is that it is neither too far from, nor too near to the problem. In its direct involvement, the African Union is also in a position to coordinate the activities performed by the various sub-regional entities, especially those relating to peace and security.

Accordingly, the most important role that the AU can play should be a political one, where UN action is hesitant and sub-regional states are willing to take an initiative, to manage an unfolding conflict in a neighbouring state, the African Union should mobilize other African States and sensitize the wider international community on the need to provide broader legitimacy to the sub-regional action. The Union should also institute mechanisms that oversee sub-regional actions and ensure that they are legitimate and not in support of particular outcomes.

The Union must also enhance the preparedness of the sub-regional organizations for peace support operations. Most African sub-regional bodies were established to implement economic agendas and are therefore, institutionally linked more to the ECA than to the OAU. However, because of the impact of conflicts on the stability of their regions, all the RECs have adopted security agendas and taken extensive security actions without developing institutional facilities to manage and to coordinate such involvements. The coordination of military doctrines, concepts of operations, training, logistical arrangements and management of peace support operations, need to be enhanced within the context of international response mechanisms, already developed by the UN.

This way, the African Union will be best placed to link this level of coordination and preparation to its efforts with the UN in support of enhancing overall African preparedness for peace support operations.

Beyond this focus on the management of problems, the African Union and its development partners, such as the UN, EU and the Bretton Woods Institutions, need to revisit the concept that has come to be known as preventive development. This means that the linkage between development, democracy, human rights and peace should also be more widely articulated and implemented. Preventive development should focus on the building of human security through the promotion of good governance at different levels - local, national, regional and international, with the African Union and regional organizations spearheading such initiatives in tandem.

This would mean providing assistance for good governance, economic development and integration. Such assistance should be specifically targeted at weak states and those in transition to democracy. It should also mean the strengthening of governance structures and mechanisms of sub-regional and international organizations to create a greater voice for all peoples and a fairer distribution of resources between and within the different regions of the world. I only hope that this is not an utopian dream.

The African Union, the UN, development partners like the EU and the sub-regional organizations must blend into their programmes - what has now come to be known as "sustainable development". For the AU, the pairing of good governance and conflict prevention, including in post-conflict situations, offers the best path to what could be referred to as "sustainable peace". Together, the twin concepts "sustainable development" and "sustainable peace" could offer a full and more focused agenda for the African Union and other regional organizations.

If preventive development is to take root in Africa, the African Union, rather than try to be everything to everybody, should narrow down its agenda and focus on norm setting and advocacy. This is where the initiative known as the CSSDCA, one of the new pillars of the comprehensive security architecture being promoted by the AU will be critical as one area when the Union and other organizations should find common cause with such a role, it would be the catalystic role of the Union to encourage such bodies as the Bretton Woods Institutions, to consolidate on their post-conflict engagements and projects in Africa. I see a need therefore to integrate the concerns of conflict prevention or preventive development work and operations of multilateral organizations and development agencies, so that they can bring about the much-needed regeneration of Africa.

Additionally, the focus of the World Bank and other supra-regional organizations must be more targeted on issues such as governance, human security, regional and sub-regional economic integration as conflict prevention tools. Funding and programmatic priorities of development agencies should be directed toward social and economic activities that will promote a cognitive transformation within Africa and which will in turn reduce the likelihood of conflict.

Before leaving you with my thoughts on the way forward, I should like to identify some of the constraints that could undermine the roles and collaboration between the AU, the UN and other regional organizations. These include:

- the problem of entry points for regional and international organizations and the difficulties experienced when member states make it difficult to ensure the time and space needed to make productive interventions;

- institutional competition and rivalries within and between organizations that stifle initiative, erode political responsibility and accountability and thwart action;

- consultation processes that stymie rather than lead to action and which erode authority and prevent a clear delegation of responsibility for action;

- the unfortunate reality that the AU and the sub-regional mechanisms, lack of institutional capacity, trained personnel and adequate resources to engage in various peace-making and peace-building activities;

- the lack of proper coordinating mechanisms and designation of institutional and individual responsibilities, once entry into a conflict has been gained, eg. too many mediators, and special representatives in some conflict situations, who end up sending mixed and confusing signals to the Parties in conflict;

- the ineffectiveness of human rights mechanisms and institutions in the African Union and sub-regional organizations as a result of inadequate resources and insufficient personnel;

- the distance between the AU and regional organizations, from local human rights groups and non-governmental organizations in spite of recent efforts to build partnership with and strengthen the African Civil Society.

The sheer duplication of efforts in the launching of initiatives - there is an amazing proliferation of special initiatives on Africa, by the UN, the EU, the Japanese, the Chinese etc. and yet the impact of these initiatives have been minimal. Add to these, the TICAD initiatives and buzzwords such as Governance for which everyone wants to have a piece.

In order to overcome some of these problems, the following proposals are made to strengthen the normative and legal frameworks and thereby enhance the roles of the AU, the UN and regional organizations:

a) the establishment and strengthening of normative/legal rules and frameworks, which will create triggers for prompt action by the AU, the UN and others when there is a crisis that threatens democracy and human rights (eg. OAU's Declaration on Unconstitutional Changes or Government, Council of Europe provisions regarding democracy and human rights violations, Commonwealth's CMAG machinery and the Harare principles, the Permanent Council Mechanisms of the OSCE);

b) the expansion of the present provisions of the UN Charter so as to give the AU improved and more direct access to the cumbersome UN machinery when circumstances dictate. Along with this improved access must come the financial, material and human support for the Union's efforts, through a self-triggering mechanism, rather than having to work through the often tedious legal and political procedures of the UN to secure support, witness the frustrations of the Mano River Region countries, the experiences in the Great Lakes etc.;

c) the strengthening and improvement of regular institutional coordination and regular consultations between the Un and the AU;

d) the exchange of personnel, not just between regional organizations and the UN but among the AU and other regional organizations. This regularized and institutionalized consultations will prevent overlapping and duplications, but most critically, it will promote greater awareness of organizational mandates and the comparative advantages of various organizations in dealing with problems;

e) clearer rules of the road which identify lead players and establish a unified economic, political and social approach to preventive action;

f) improved joint training opportunities for the AU and sub-regional organization's personnel, in such areas as mediation, negotiation and problem-solving approaches particularly, for those who are going to the field for the first time;

g) the creation of dynamic focal points within the AU, UN and regional organizations, particularly in the areas of information collection and sharing and the development of action strategies, in order to avoid overlap and duplication;

h) the greater use of mechanisms such as liaison officers, joint action and inter-agency committees and donor support groups, to integrate activities into a coherent and coordinated strategy for future action;

i) new approaches to problem-solving by the AU, the UN and sub-regional organizations should be structured in a manner that transcends the traditional, political and military considerations and embrace economic, environmental, humanitarian as well as human rights issues;

j) the AU and sub-regional organizations must develop and maintain formal and explicit capacities with which to ensure that they remain seized of problems such as the external debt problem, the management of transitions and economic transformations, as well as post-conflict reconstruction. These must be continually addressed as an integral part of the agenda of building the foundation for long-term stability in Africa.

Finally, the African Union and the sub-regional organizations must now fully accept the fact that they have to take the primary ownership of the efforts to solve the continent's problems especially those relating to peace, security, development and integration. This is necessary because, in my view, the outside world has for sometime now, shown signs that it is becoming increasingly less enthusiastic in solving the continent's problems. Indeed, if the Union fails to take care of Africa's problems as a regional entity, it well have to continue to live with and shoulder costly humanitarian problems such as refuges and internally displaced persons, environmental degradations, as well as continue to bear witness to heavy loss of human life, abuse of our women and children and the destruction of infrastructure.

I should like to conclude by stating the obvious, if the AU must take primary responsibility for resolving African problems, then its strengthening and those of the RECs, become an imperative. Indeed, this will make the UN itself stronger and more relevant. For the African Union, one is reminded by the remark of Jean Monnet, one of the pioneering figures of the post-war West European integration, that Europe will not be built from crises, but from the sum of their resolution. It is thus incumbent on the leaders and people of Africa, to ensure that the several crises that we are currently confronted with, will have to be resolved, if our African Union is to become a reality.

On a lighter note, one is encouraged by the determination of African leaders to ensure that even though the AU draws a lot of inspiration from the EU, the AU will not be an EU clone.

In this regard, the experience of the recent meeting of African Experts on the African Union, where a serious and sustained effort was made to ensure that the Commission of the AU is reduced to a glorified Secretariat, is very instructive. At least we are learning from the EU.