Posts by: Ann Fitz-Gerald
This article considers the military doctrine currently available to the African Standby Force (ASF) for peace operations (PO) on the African continent. In the absence of an updated and relevant doctrine for PO, risks are posed to the harmonization and coordination of multinational missions, as well as to the successful achievement of mission objectives. Despite laudable efforts by both the United Nations (UN) and bilateral donor nations to support the preparatory and continuation training of ASF troops, differences in the national and multinational experiences of this work and the differences in the legal basis of this doctrine do not provide an optimal ‘stop gap’ measure. The pressing new requirement for African peace missions to deter terrorist and insurgent anti-peace factions exposes the limitations of UN doctrine, which preserves traditional peacekeeping principles of consent, impartiality and minimum use of force
Continue Reading →As of 2015, 43 peace operations had deployed to 15 different African countries. Africa’s increasing efforts to support its own peace operations have led to African peace and security organisations both leading on, and contributing the mainstay of personnel to, these missions. This paper examines a number of African peace operations and analyses the evolution of the mission mandates. A selection of four representative peace operations – Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Somalia, and Darfur – which differ in terms of timeframe, implementing authority, size and conflict dynamics are examined to assess patterns, trends and anomalies of mandates over the life cycle of their missions.Academic and policy-related literature places emphasis on the impact of UN Security Council geopolitics, roles and responsibilities supporting civilian protection, the AU’s financial, materiel and human resource deficiencies, and the role of peacebuilding. However, little has been written on the evolution of wider peace mission mandates as well as the role of African organisations in developing these mandates.
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