Peacekeeping in the Horn of Africa

1. Peacekeeping in the Horn of Africa Jeremy Astill-Brown Inter Africa Group Sub-Regional Consultation on Peace and Security Challenges in the Horn of Africa November 2009

2. Summary • Despite the deployment of a number of peace missions, the international community has not been successful in promoting a sustainable peace capable of delivering human security for the residents of the Horn of Africa • Because: • Few of the missions integrate with each other; • Competing perceptions of “threat” to the region resulting in uneven responses; • Lack of coordinated regional analysis across institutions. • Need: • Fully integrated mission planning which links each mission to the others; and which delivers coherent political, development and security effect across the region; • Pan-institutional, pan-regional consensus on the problem and the solution; • To place the human security of the region’s residents at the heart of all interventions.

3. Scope The paper will • Analyse: • The key actors; • The key missions in the region • Consider if mission mandates are appropriate • Explore what motivates the various actors • Make recommendations • Draw a conclusion

4. Multilateral actors • United Nations Security Council (UNSC); • African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC); • Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) • Multiple reports by all these bodies suggest an interest. But little evidence that their analyses are (i) comprehensive; or (ii) linked to each other. (As has been the case, for example, over DRC.) • Apparent lack of meaningful and timely consultation between the key actors. • Such formal or informal consultation between UN, AU and IGAD as has taken place falls far short of a systematic effort to analyse jointly the situation in advance of taking decisions relating to security and development needs of the Horn of Africa.

5. Key missions

6. Mandates As a general rule, individual mission mandates have been locally appropriate – and the trend (with respect to making them integrated) is generally good. But key additional constraints on mission effectiveness remain: • Inadequate political will; • Poor analysis; • Poor operationalisation; • Poor logistics; inadequate funding; • Lack of exit strategy which emphasises long term sustainable peace.

7. Motivation (1) Two perspectives – with a lot in common… • Local - conflict in the region is a bad for its countries and peoples; • Global – conflict in the region leaves a legacy of ungoverned space in which threats to global peace and security can flourish. But wider (selfish) perceptions of short term security need have generally trumped longer term security and development interventions. …but some key differences • We tackle our security problems in their backyard; • They see our resulting security partnerships making their governments less accountable and more – potentially - repressive

8. Motivation (2) Our and their security concerns could be accommodated in the same framework. The key task is to express the threat in terms which speak to the interests of all citizens; not just those living far from Africa. In order to tackle both immediate and long term security and development threats in the Horn of Africa, a consensus on the comprehensive nature of the threat must first be obtained. Flowing from that consensus, a plan to tackle both the immediate and long term issues must be made; and international security and development interventions must seek to tackle both. In doing so, a much clearer link between the immediate security threat and long term development needs must be made.

9. Recommendations 1: The UNSC and the AUPSC should produce – and constantly revise - a joint analysis of the security and development needs of the Horn of Africa to act as a policy context to inform all international interventions in the region. 2: The European Union should establish a Special Representative for the region specifically to link its political and development action in the region in such a way as to promote the effect of human security. 3: Drawing on a joint United Nations and African Union analysis of the security and development needs of the region, all future missions must be integrated with each other; and be fully integrated security and development missions. 4: The primary purpose of all future international peace missions in the Horn of Africa should be to create conditions which promote human security for the residents of the region.

10. Conclusion Peace missions alone are not the answer. A focus on peace and/or security missions disguises a wider problem: The conflict issues which have assailed the region for many decades have masked the extent to which governments of the region have the will (and indeed the incentives) to place people-centred development, including their related security needs, at the heart of their policy and practice. There is little getting away from the fact that to a large degree, the conflict afflicted population of the region are also directly affected by a significant democratic deficit: whatever the state of their country, the mechanisms to hold government to account and to place their interests (as opposed to those of an elite) at the centre of government policy are either wholly absent or are too weak to count.

11. Thank you Jeremy Astill-Brown Jeremy@Astill-Brown.org (T) +44 1997 42 33 71 (M) +44 7941 078 960 • Acacia Development Associates provide policy analysis, advice and development which will help their clients to: • plan strategically and holistically for future challenges; and • generate appropriate and practical solutions to real world problems.