Persistent problems in African integration and peace-keeping

Abstract

African economic integration and peacekeeping constitute respectively the largest institutionalization, and the largest operationalization, of the African Union (AU) and its sub-regional organisations. The number of African soldiers and police in AU and United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations has grown steadily. Sometimes, major strategic decisions have been mistakes which aggravated, or even catalysed conflicts that would not otherwise have occurred. The peacekeeping missions in Nigeria and Somalia are examples of these. Peacekeeping operations are in the larger scheme of things part of the on-going project of African integration. This paper identifies major problems that remain persistent after half a century of protracted Pan-Africanist endeavours at subregional and continental integration. One recurrent occurrence is the chasm between aspirational treaties voluntarily signed, and their implementation, taking at best a decade or decades. Often, entities founded on paper remain dormant, until in a subsequent decade another structure is founded to operationalize the function of the previous paper entity, with this process going through several iterations.