Peacekeeping in Africa

Who are the role-players and what are the challenges?

Abstract

Clapham (1998:1) states that the African continent has had a critical impact on defining the limits and possibilities of the post-Cold War order and the place of the UN within that context. The problems and challenges that the UN has faced in Africa have also reflected the peculiar difficulties of peacekeeping endeavours in general, as well as the fact that conflict management in this part of the world has been among the UN's most important and challenging initiatives since the end of the Cold War. In view of these difficulties, the UN Security Council proved to be increasingly willing to allow regional, subregional and ad hoc initiatives in Africa as complementary ways and means of dealing with conflicts on the continent. This reality, as well as developments in Africa in the form of frequent conflicts - and the tendency of these conflicts to generate security problems and humanitarian disasters - compelled African role-players to consider and reconsider response capabilities or regional peacekeeping capabilities of some kind.