AFRICAN PEACE RESEARCH
The Africa peace program builds upon the WPF engagement with the African Union, including our 2016 report African Politics, African Peace, and Alex de Waal’s expertise and engagement on a broad range of issues related to African peace and security. The WPF opportunistically sponsors research, programming and outputs when we can make an impact on discussions about African Peace issues.
In recent years, this work has focused on Ethiopia and Sudan.
Crisis in the Horn
For generations, the peoples of the Horn of Africa have suffered the scourge of war, mass atrocities against civilians, repression and famine; their region has been divided by polarizing ideologies and identity projects, destabilized by external meddling and intervention, and is prone to climate crisis.
Photo: Sudanese protestors gather in front of government buildings in Khartoum, Voice of America, Public Domain
Sudan Peace Archives
The study of peace in Africa has long been handicapped by the paucity of internal documentary material from peace processes themselves. This means that conflict resolution as a practice does not always learn lessons and the field is often criticized for a supposed lack of scholarly rigor. The WPF has an extensive archive of documentation of African peace processes which we are making available to researchers.
Past Projects
African Peace Missions: This program culminated in the July 2016 report, African Politics, African Peace, submitted to the African Union. It is the most extensive review of the African Union’s peace missions ever conducted and charts an agenda for peace in Africa. The program site provides access to the report, research briefs, case studies, and multimedia resources.
African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan: This high-level panel was headed by three former African Presidents, Thabo Mbeki (South Africa), Abdulsalami Abubaker (Nigeria) and Pierre Buyoya (Burundi) and was charged to address issues related to peace and democratization in Sudan and South Sudan. Alex de Waal was Senior Adviser to the AUHIP.
Security Sector Governance and State Legitimacy: A project developed in partnership with The Fletcher School’s Institute for Human Security.