ADEKEYE ADEBAJO: Africa’s peacekeeping paradox

While recently addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Félix Tshisekedi demanded that the world body begin withdrawing its 18,000 troops from his country by December. This follows the ongoing withdrawal of 13,000 UN peacekeepers from Mali, to be concluded by January.

Meanwhile, the AU has begun a staggered withdrawal of its 15,000 peacekeepers from Somalia. These untimely departures will create further instability across large swathes of Africa’s Sahel, the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa. In the near future, peacekeepers will again be required to provide security, to facilitate the negotiation of durable peace accords and help ensure their successful implementation.

Peacekeeping in Africa — where 84% of UN peacekeepers are deployed — is facing a serious crisis due to an enduring paradox: African peacekeepers who are more willing to enforce peace are not provided the logistical and financial resources to do so, while better-equipped UN peacekeepers often refuse to undertake dangerous enforcement missions to protect populations at risk.

Four key factors explain this situation. First, after the death of popular Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba under the noses of a Western-dominated UN peacekeeping mission in 1961, many African governments opposed the deployment of its peacekeepers on their soil. Governments in Egypt, Eritrea, Chad, Burundi and Sudan subsequently expelled UN peacekeepers.

However, it is important not to throw the baby out with the bath water, as the world body has helped restore peace and democratic governance to Namibia, Mozambique and Sierra Leone.

Second, Africa remains replete with weak states that have often relapsed into conflict as a result of poor governance, lack of socioeconomic development and a failure by external actors to implement effective peacebuilding strategies.

The third explanation lies in the continuing weakness of fledgling African regional organisations such as the AU, Economic Community of West African States and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc).

Finally, the deployment of troops to African theatres by external actors such as France, the US and Russian-backed Wagner mercenaries, have often represented more self-interested meddling than efforts to strengthen Africa’s security architecture.      

Like the Western armies, the largest UN troop-contributing countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal tend to refuse to deploy their troops to dangerous peace-enforcement missions. This has damaged the credibility of UN peacekeeping in Mali, the DRC, South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) where the Blue Helmets are widely perceived by local populations to be observers of the slaughter and displacement of millions rather than halting it.

The fact that 80% of the $1bn annual budgets of these large African missions typically towards meeting the needs of sometimes sexually exploitive and lavish UN peacekeepers, rather than rebuilding war-torn countries, creates further resentment. 

Many Africans also regard peacekeeping as a tool of parochial influence by France, which has headed the UN Department of Peace Operations for the past 27 years. Paris has been accused of deploying self-interested missions to its former colonies: Mali, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic and Chad.

What is to be done to resolve Africa’s peacekeeping paradox? First, African governments must promote genuine governance and development to address the root causes of conflicts, while the international donor community should generously support genuine democratic reformers.

Second, the UN must provide assessed contributions to capacitate African regional peace-enforcers under UN-led peace operations. Third, UN troop-contributors must be prepared to risk the lives of their soldiers in international missions, shaping rather than kowtowing to domestic public opinion. Global solidarity requires that the goal of peacekeeping remains to achieve peace, not profit.

Finally, UN secretary-general António Guterres has recently sensibly called for a better-resourced UN Peacebuilding Commission that can work closely with the UN Security Council. The powerful council itself must bring in permanent members, particularly from Africa and Latin America.

Only through implementing such solutions, can Africa’s peacekeeping paradox be fixed.

• Adebajo is professor and senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship.