Africa

After decades of stagnation and malaise, a new determination is emerging to move Africa forward. Most countries now have democratically elected governments. A stronger regional organization -- the African Union -- is being built, to provide a more effective means for resolving armed conflicts, integrating African economies and promoting Africa's interests globally.

African leaders have devised a forward-looking plan, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, which sets out an ambitious "agenda for renewal." NEPAD recognizes that progress will come not only through increasing the continent's growth rates -- "recovery" in the language of the economists -- but also through advancing human development in its broadest sense. Through NEPAD, Africa's leaders are aiming to harness the enormous potential and talents of their people and chart a course towards continental rejuvenation.

Africa today is afflicted by fewer serious armed conflicts than it was just six years ago, says UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. When he issued his first major report on the causes of conflict in Africa in 1998, there were 14 countries in the midst of war and another 11 were suffering from severe political turbulence. Today, Mr. Annan notes in his annual follow-up report, just a half-dozen African countries are suffering from serious armed conflicts, among them Burundi, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. And very few other countries are facing deep political crises.

The UN and the rest of the international community have been "responding more readily" to armed conflicts in Africa, the Secretary-General notes. But much credit for the improvement also rests with Africa. The African Union, various sub-regional organizations and a number of governments have become more active in mobilizing military forces for peacekeeping missions or in defusing political crises before they escalate into large-scale violence, he reports. Reflecting the international community's greater readiness today to respond to conflicts in Africa -- after a series of peacekeeping setbacks in the 1990s -- Africa now receives the highest deployment of UN peacekeepers in the world, Mr. Annan reports. (This totalled nearly 48,000 troops at the end of August 2004, according to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.)

In recent years, the UN Security Council has approved new peacekeeping missions in Burundi, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia. The UN has also dispatched an advance team to southern Sudan, where a peace agreement has been signed, and the world body is collaborating closely with the African Union in efforts to facilitate a solution to the current crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. In Sudan as in a number of other armed conflicts in Africa, such crises often have serious consequences for neighbouring countries, highlighting the importance of regional solutions.

Despite "steady" improvements in these areas, the Secretary-General adds, there have been only "modest and slow" advances in alleviating the underlying economic and political conditions that foster tension and strife. Poverty reduction has been slow. Concerns are rising about high levels of youth unemployment and heightened competition over scarce resources because of demographic pressures. There also has been only limited progress in strengthening democracy, enhancing administrative capacity, ensuring independence of the judiciary and promoting transparency and accountability.

Information Source: Africa Renewal publication. To view previous issues of this publication click here.

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