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- The departure of UN peacekeepers in Mali has created an immediate security crisis.
- The UN spends vast amounts on peacekeeping forces in Africa. The AU, not so much.
- The seeming spread of coups from the Sahel southwards is putting pressure on the continental body to act.
The chairperson of the African Union, Moussa Faki Mahamat, has told the continental bloc's Peace Security Council (PSC) of the "need for comprehensive and sustainable solutions" in the Sahel region as well as to consolidate headway made in Somalia, Mozambique, and the Lake Chad Basin.
He also called for the creation of a model that would "ensure that the guns remain silent in Ethiopia and pathways to address the crisis in Libya and Sudan are created."
This, he said, was critical because of the gaps that were being created by the withdrawal of United Nations peace forces across the continent.
"For instance, as Minsuma (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) is facilitating its withdrawal, we saw twin attacks on a Malian military base and a passenger boat on the Niger River in northern Mali," he said.
In countries such as South Sudan, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the Central African Republic (CAR), UN peacekeepers have been told to ship out.
Reports say the forces, who operate under strict guidelines, are unable to ensure general security, stabilise volatile situations, or even protect civilians despite huge sums of money poured into peacekeeping missions.
In the DRC alone, the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Monusco) works with a budget of some R27 billion per year.
"The situation in the Sahel continues to point to the need for comprehensive and sustainable solutions to prevent its current potential to connect with the challenges in the Lake Chad region and or expand into West Africa," Mahamat said.
With military coups that seemingly have popular support from civilians because of the manipulation of democratic values by politicians on the rise, Mahamat warned that this new wave could slide Africa deeper into chaos.
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"Today, we are facing the extreme gravity of the development of the toxic phenomena of non-constitutional changes of government. Seven countries are affected, and the potential for contagion exists. A new alliance of non-constitutional change of governments has been proclaimed. It presents a new dimension which we must also take into account in our new strategy," he added.
Africa led solutions
With the UN peacekeepers headed out, the AU will still rely on the UN Assessed Contributions to determine who pays what to the AU, mainly based on gross domestic product (GDP). As such, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Algeria, in that order, based on World Bank statistics, will be the biggest contributors.
For this year, the AU has released about R76 million to two peacekeeping missions.
"As a demonstration of the AU's commitment to burden-sharing, I approved US$2 million each from the Peace Fund's Crisis Reserve Facility (CRF) to bridge the Atmis funding gap and support operations of the East African Community (EAC) Regional Force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) respectively," he said.
The cessation of hostilities in Ethiopia and ongoing efforts to find peace in war-ravaged Sudan have also received funding.
"US$1 million is also availed for support to the Ethiopia and Sudan peace processes, with approval by the executive council for the increase of the 2023 allocation from US$5 million to US$7 million, with US$10 million already approved for 2024," he said.
He called for more support, particularly logistics and equipment donations, to every part of the continent where they were needed because "these steps are necessary to enhance AU's ownership of its peace and security priorities and to enable peace enforcement operations that are less costly and more effective in addressing current asymmetric threats that UN peacekeeping operations are not able to undertake."
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
