The African Peace and Security Architecture

Abstract

In the preceding chapters, I examined the contexts underlying the evolution of the APSA, namely: the nature of African security environment and the inability of the OAU to satisfactorily institutionalise a security mechanism to solve Africa’s manifold security problems and guarantee basic security for African citizens. These appalling situations have, for many years, forced the continent to look for and rely on the broader international community, especially the UN, to solve its conflicts and deal with security. These efforts have not always been successful, as epitomised by the 1994 Rwandan genocide.1 Since the transformation of the unwieldy OAU into an ambitious security regime, the AU, there have been significant developments on the continent with the clear demonstration of Africa’s willingness through its pro-activeness in terms of its leaders’ readiness to tackle the continent’s security quagmires (Aning 2008: 9). Africa’s new zeal for security management has led to first, the establishment of a formal institutional framework for conflict management, the APSA, through the AU’s adoption, in 2002, of the PSC Protocol, which represents a fundamental paradigm shift in Africa’s approach to conflict management, and second, increasing collaborations between the UN and the AU in peace and security matters.2 Thus, the APSA becomes Africa’s first continent-wide regional peace and security system; it represents African efforts to manage African security, for it provides an opportunity for the continent to break away from the age-old practice of overreliance on the international community to solve African conflicts (Kasumba and Debrah 2010: 12).