17 07 14 African – Arguments – The continuing curse of state fragility in Africa

Late last month the ‘Fund for Peace’ released its annual ‘Fragile States Index’
– known previously (and somewhat controversially) as the ‘Failed States
Index’. Removing the category of ‘Failed States’ and using the new
label ‘Fragile States’ is certainly an improvement – the new ‘fragile’ label sounds more neutral than the ideologically charged ‘failed.’

‘Fragility’ is also better at capturing the complexities of states
and the continuum of capabilities rather than creating a false dichotomy
between failed and not failed states. Unlike ‘Failed States’, fragility
does not ignore the existence of pockets of governance even in the most
fragile of states and regions of fragility in stronger ones.

Unsurprisingly, the latest index lists many African countries near
the top. All five of the countries in the ‘Very High Alert’ category,
five of the 11 countries in the ‘High Alert’ category and 12 of the 17
countries in the ‘Alert’ category are in Africa. This means that more
than half (20) of the highly fragile countries in the world (34) are
located in the continent.

The major curse of state fragility is the risk of a country plunging
into violent conflict. If the index is anything to go by, a significant
number of African countries are at real risk of this. And this risk has
been borne out by events in recent years as a number of countries have
experienced a resurgence of internal violence and sustained incidents of
terrorism.

In the past two years, a number of countries emerging from conflict
have again been plunged into violence. These include Mali, the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic
(CAR) and most recently South Sudan. Major terrorist attacks were also
registered in various countries including most notably Nigeria and Kenya
(both for a prolonged period of time.)

While all of these countries are in the category of ‘Highly Fragile
States’, the DRC, CAR and South Sudan are part of the top five ‘Very
High Alert’ category of states. The scale of South Sudan’s descent in to
civil war was reflected in the fact that it displaced Somalia
to take the top spot as the world’s most fragile state. Also
unsurprising, the CAR experienced the biggest jump up the list in the
2014 index.

This presents a major challenge to the emerging African peace and security system
anchored on the African Union (AU) and sub-regional organizations. It
highlights the inadequacy of the AU’s excessive focus on a
‘fire-fighting’ approach with heavy reliance on conflict resolution and
conflict by The weDownload Manager" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent ! important; border: medium none ! important; display: inline-block ! important; text-indent: 0px ! important; float: none ! important; font-weight: bold ! important; height: auto ! important; margin: 0px ! important; min-height: 0px ! important; min-width: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important; width: auto ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; text-transform: uppercase ! important;">management tools and the resultant inattention to conflict prevention and post-conflict peace-building activities.

To cater for the tendency of many African states to fall into
conflict, the African Union (AU) has put in place such mechanisms as the
Continental Early Earning System for detecting and warning
policy-makers on the risks of upheaval and conflict in AU member states.
Similarly, the AU has established a post-conflict reconstruction and
development framework to deal with post-conflict peace-building issues
supporting countries emerging out of conflict or political turmoil.
Increasing efforts have also been made to progressively operationalize
these mechanisms.

The 2011/2012 north African uprisings and eruption of conflict in the
eastern DRC and Mali in 2012, and in the CAR and South Sudan in 2013,
show that the efforts undertaken to prevent conflicts or support
peace-building have been either utterly inadequate, unsuccessful or
both.

As the events in South Sudan and CAR show, without paying greater
attention to and prioritizing the situation of state fragility in
Africa, the AU cannot make meaningful headway with respect to preventing
both new conflicts from erupting and countries coming out of conflict
from relapsing back to violent instability.

Questions, such as which countries are most fragile and hence at high
risk of facing major crisis, and which continental and global
organizations are best placed to by The weDownload Manager" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent ! important; border: medium none ! important; display: inline-block ! important; text-indent: 0px ! important; float: none ! important; font-weight: bold ! important; height: auto ! important; margin: 0px ! important; min-height: 0px ! important; min-width: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important; width: auto ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; text-transform: uppercase ! important;">play
a role in addressing these challenges, need to be raised and properly
addressed. If the AU and countries in Africa are to make headway in
overcoming the trap of the prevailing ‘fire-fighting’ approach to
conflicts and violence, there is a need to continuously monitor and
robustly engage in these countries. To this end, programmes and plans
need to be put in place and resources and political will mobilized.

The curse of state fragility, bequeathed from colonialism and sustained through bad governance and poor by The weDownload Manager" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent ! important; border: medium none ! important; display: inline-block ! important; text-indent: 0px ! important; float: none ! important; font-weight: bold ! important; height: auto ! important; margin: 0px ! important; min-height: 0px ! important; min-width: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important; width: auto ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; text-transform: uppercase ! important;">leadership,
need not be a permanent feature of countries in Africa. Indeed, one of
the lessons from this year’s ‘Fragile States Index’ was that countries
can progressively move from a status of being most fragile to stronger
levels of state capacity.

As highlighted by the index,
while Sierra Leone has become the first ever country to exit the
‘Alert’ category, the progress Liberia has made in the past decade has
shown that it may well follow Sierra Leone out of the ‘Alert’ category
in the coming years.

As a recent study
convincingly argued, such an outcome is predicated on long-term and
sustained engagement with the country and investment in all spheres
including the political, security, institution building and
socio-economic by The weDownload Manager" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent ! important; border: medium none ! important; display: inline-block ! important; text-indent: 0px ! important; float: none ! important; font-weight: bold ! important; height: auto ! important; margin: 0px ! important; min-height: 0px ! important; min-width: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important; width: auto ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; text-transform: uppercase ! important;">recovery.

Solomon Ayele Dersso, a legal by The weDownload Manager" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent ! important; border: medium none ! important; display: inline-block ! important; text-indent: 0px ! important; float: none ! important; font-weight: bold ! important; height: auto ! important; margin: 0px ! important; min-height: 0px ! important; min-width: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important; width: auto ! important; text-decoration: underline ! important; text-transform: uppercase ! important;">scholar
and analyst of African affairs, is Head of Peace and Security Council
Report at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), Addis Ababa Office.