ACCORD has adapted to the new COVID-19 reality, refocusing and restructuring a significant proportion of its staff and its effort on identifying & monitoring, tracking &, analysing, and preparing & responding to COVID-19 related social-unrest and violent conflict in Africa.
Through our networks across Africa, and supported by available online data, ACCORD identifies COVID-19 related incidents and trends that may provide early warning of rising tensions that could develop into social unrest and violent conflict. Once the incidents are captured in the dataset, ACCORD analyses the trends and publishes a weekly COVID-19 Africa Conflict and Resilience Monitor, in order to share the information and analysis with all stakeholders.
ACCORD then works with its in-country networks and other local, regional, continental and international partners and stakeholders, to encourage and support interventions aimed at mitigating, and where possible preventing, COVID-19 related social unrest and violent conflict.
This month we begin with an article about the challenges that national peace architectures face in the current peace and security landscape in Africa. The article, written by Chika Charles Aniekwe and Ozonnia Ojielo, discusses the challenges that these architectures face due to violent non-state actors (VNSAs). VNSAs operate across borders, which is a challenge for national peace architectures, as they are limited by their national borders. This requires states and architectures to better co-ordinate their activities in border areas.
We also featuring articles on two of Africa’s most important peace and security forums, namely the Tana Forum on Security in Africa and the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development. These forums bring together the African peace and security expert and policy communities to take stock of Africa’s peace and security challenges, brainstorm solutions and discussing Africa’s place and role in the global peace and security architecture.
Hesphina Rukato writes the first of these articles about the Tana Forum on Security in Africa. The article discusses the 10 years of the Tana Forum and its various recommendations in a number of areas relating to peace and security in Africa, including on managing fragile states, organised crime, natural resource governance and economic integration amongst others.
Seba Issa then discusses the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development, which is set to host its fifth edition in October. The Aswan Forum bridges policy and practice gaps across the peace-security-development nexus in Africa, while also highlighting African perspectives on global priorities, frameworks and strategies, with the intention of positioning Africa as a contributor to the global peace and development agenda.
Concluding this edition of the monitor is an article written by Katharine Bebington about the upcoming elections in Malawi. She discusses some of the issues and challenges that have since emerged including instances of politically motivated violence, ahead of these polls.
Are national peace architectures, typically centred on peace councils, local peace committees, and insider mediation, still fit for purpose?
Ten years after its launch and two years of silence, there is a need to reboot the Tana Forum on Security in Africa for it to remain a strong platform enabling Africa to lead in addressing peace and security issues
The Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development was launched in 2019 during Egypt’s Chairmanship of the African Union (AU) and under the auspices of H.E. Abdelfattah El-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, and Champion of Post-Conflict …
If you are able to share information from your experiences on the ground with the crisis in Africa, we'd really like to hear from you. Please get in touch!
