ECOWAS AND THE CHALLENGES OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN WEST AFRICA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE AWARD OF MASTER OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (MIS (original) (raw)
Related papers
ECOWAS, Peace and Conflict Management in West Africa
The Economic Community of West African States was formed in the twentieth century to promote multidimensional cooperation that will bring peace and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ironically, while the Community tries to attain the day to day goals of the organization; the recurrent cases of civil wars, internal conflicts and terrorism continually abort the peace that is needed to enthrone sustainable regional development. This paper is a study on the challenges to regional peace in West Africa. It traced the origins as well as the organs of the Community and shows how ECOWAS has successfully managed a number of conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea Bissau and Cote d' Ivoire, while highlighting the policies and programs adopted to manage conflict and promote sustainable development. Finally, it called for multi-track approach in the war against terrorism, revolution, multi-dimensional conflicts and political crisis that have bedevilled the West African region.
JANUS.NET, 2019
Conflict prevention has become an important doctrine within conflict management policies in international and regional organizations, especially since the end of the Cold War. There has been an evolution in the last three decades in the context of peace and security that has made conflict prevention gains relevance. In the current context, with the arrival of António Guterres to the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), conflict prevention doctrine could be encouraged, since he has pointed out that it should be the priority of the organization. Conflict prevention offers several advantages to face crisis contexts, since it works on avoiding violence situations escalating towards armed conflicts and helping to control the spread of security threats. By using preventive measures, the structural causes of conflicts can be dealt with in the most durable and efficient manner since the final goal of preventive actions is to transform actually or potentially violent conflict into non-violent processes of social and political change. While conflict prevention has gained greater importance, another trend has been promoted; security regionalization. Since the mid-nineties, there has been a transition in international peacekeeping missions, aimed to warrant peace and security all over the world that has focused on regional actors. This practice has been particularly welcomed in Africa. Both trends -conflict prevention and security regionalization-will be the object of study in this article, using as a practical scenario the region of West Africa. It is a geographic area where a series of cross-border threats are concentrated, hence becoming a zone of international concern. Moreover, the experience on conflict prevention of the regional organization, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is interesting. Indeed, ECOWAS has carried out a significant activity regarding preventive diplomacy and mediation in conflicts. Thus, the objectives of this research are: (1) to study the evolution of conflict prevention doctrine; (2) to assess the link between conflict prevention policies and security regionalization; and (3) to use the case of ECOWAS as an illustration, since the organization is at the forefront of conflict prevention iniciatives in the African continent. This is how they were classified 1 in the Final Report of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflicts, entitled Preventing Deadly Conflict (Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997) -a document of reference-, which distinguished between:
Violent Conflicts and Civil Strife in West Africa: Causes, Challenges and Prospects
Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 2014
The advent of intra-state conflicts or ‘new wars’ in West Africa has brought many of its economies to the brink of collapse, creating humanitarian casualties and concerns. For decades, countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea- Bissau were crippled by conflicts and civil strife in which violence and incessant killings were prevalent. While violent conflicts are declining in the sub-region, recent insurgencies in the Sahel region affecting the West African countries of Mali, Niger and Mauritania and low intensity conflicts surging within notably stable countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal sends alarming signals of the possible re-surfacing of internal and regional violent conflicts. These conflicts are often hinged on several factors including poverty, human rights violations, bad governance and corruption, ethnic marginalization and small arms proliferation. Although many actors including the ECOWAS, civil society and international community have been making efforts, conflicts continue to persist in the sub-region and their resolution is often protracted. This paper posits that the poor understanding of the fundamental causes of West Africa’s violent conflicts and civil strife would likely cause the sub-region to continue experiencing and suffering the brunt of these violent wars.
2014
Confronted with political crises, undemocratic governments, civil strife and droughts, African sub-regional organisations have experienced growing challenges in resolving these problems. The Economic Community of West Africa, although it is regarded as the most successful sub- regional grouping has also been confronted by new emerging threats to security as the West African group has been a haven of terrorist linked groups. It is in face of these challenges that this research evaluates the effectiveness of ECOWAS in resolving intra- state conflicts in West Africa with specific focus on Mali. The study sought to establish whether ECOWAS has successfully addressed the problem in Mali which began in January 2012. The study also had the objective of examining the institutional frameworks available in ECOWAS that governs its response to crisis in the region. The other objective was to explore measures which have been put in place by ECOWAS in resolving the Malian crisis. The study adopte...
ECOWAS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION-COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE 2012 MALI AND GUINEA BISSAU CRISES
2019
The thrust of this research work examined Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) conflict resolution in the 2012 Mali and Guinea Bissau crises. The study made efforts to trace the remote and immediate cause of the crisis that besieged Mali and Guinea Bissau, its effects on the socio-economic and political environment of these countries and efforts made by ECOWAS in restoring peace and democracy in these states and in West Africa. The main objective of the study is to analyse the action taken by ECOWAS under its Mechanism for the Prevention, Management, Resolution of Conflicts, Peacekeeping and Security in restoring constitutional order in Mali and Guinea Bissau. The study adopted the Neo-liberalism as its theoretical framework. The study made use of the primary and secondary data which involved unstructured interview and document analysis, while the qualitative descriptive analysis was employed to analyse data generated. One of the major findings of this study was the fact that although Guinea Bissau crisis did not come as a surprise to ECOWAS and the international community, Mali’s decline was a major setback in the democratic process of West Africa. However, ECOWAS as it has done in time past was the first to react to the crises, proffer solutions, began the peace process and reform of the defence sector and finally carried out fresh elections that restored constitutional order. The study concluded that conflicts in whatever form is unacceptable and a hindrance to peace and development and cannot be condoned. ECOWAS renewed commitment in pursuing democratic principles informed its decision to intervene in Mali and Guinea Bissau and its success is one to be commended. The study therefore recommends that ECOWAS should enforce its principles of democracy, rule of law, protect human rights, curb corruption, promote good governance amongst its member states and proffer mechanism by which violators of its principles would be systemically dealt with.
Globalization and management of regional conflicts and security in Africa: The case of ECOWAS
2014
Globalization, characterized by liberalism, free market policies, information and communication technology, inter-connection, inter dependence, borderless border, etc, has made the world a global village. The new phase of the international political economy has challenged Africa to face her numerous conflicts, and security issues squarely. The pathology of conflicts and insecurity in such places in Africa as Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Chad, Congo (DRC), Cote d’ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, etc, have become so endemic in recent times affecting development and good governance, creating serious challenges to regional organizations ability to manage such conflicts and security. The paper analyzes regional conflicts and security challenges in Africa with special focus on West Africa. In the main, it explains several underlying concepts, theories and causes of regional conflicts. Furthermore, the article addresses major security concerns of the sub-region such as small arms prolif...
2020
Various initiatives have been undertaken to manage conflicts in Africa at the subregional, continental, and multilateral levels. While subregional institutions like ECOWAS have commendably taken up initiatives to ensure peace in countries such as Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the effectiveness of such efforts has been hampered by lack of internal cohesion among member countries. Another key gap is the lack of efficient conflict mediation mechanisms and structures spearheaded by credible representatives to mitigate internal conflict in member states. This paper highlights the need to rethink the Eurocentric conflict management strategies often adopted to manage African conflicts. It makes a case for more creative, contextual, and innovative approaches to conflict resolution in West Africa. Drawing on extant literature, the paper argues that the complex and multifaceted nature of many of the internal armed conflicts in the subregion necessitates hybrid conflict...
The ECOWAS parliament as a tool for conflict prevention in West Africa
2015
This thesis seeks to examine the effectiveness of the ECOWAS Parliament in conflict prevention in West Africa. From a holistic perspective, it also discusses the emergence of regional parliaments and specifically analyses their contribution to conflict prevention. This thesis is the first to assess how the ECOWAS Parliament attempts to prevent conflict in West Africa and how effective this has been. It presents the argument that, bodies such as the ECOWAS-P which are mandated as the legislative organs in a region otherwise noted for protracted conflicts play a crucial role in preventing conflict. The study employed participant observation (specifically in the ECOWAS-P), case study methods, elite interviews, parliamentary and archival research. The thesis greatest contribution lie in undertaking an institutionalist approach to conflict prevention and drawing from public administration developed and applied a performance management tool to help assess how the ECOWAs-P has succeeded at...