Cases of Conflicts
There are current cases of political instability across the continent, with violence and unrest raging on in South Sudan, Burundi, and Somalia amongst other insecure countries. Against the backdrop of the unrest in these countries, we revisit seven civil wars in Africa, which we must never forget.
Although conflicts are not always violent, those that have plagued West Africa at community, state and regional levels have been characterized by violence. For decades, countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau were crippled by conflicts and civil strife in which violence and incessant killings were prevalent.
While violent conflicts are declining in the sub-region, recent insurgencies in the Sahel region affecting the West African countries of Mali, Niger and Mauritania sends alarming signals of the possible re-surfacing of internal and regional violent conflicts.
More critical to add is the low intensity conflicts surging within notably stable countries such as the Casamance conflict in Senegal, the intermittent Dagbon chieftaincy crisis in Ghana and the Niger Delta conflict in Nigeria to name a few. These conflicts have resulted in the ‘destruction of lives and property, the internal displacement of people, a region-wide refugee crisis, poverty and disease, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, human and drug trafficking, illegal exploitation of natural resources and banditry.
Reasons
The empirical analysis is based on estimating an empirical model of the probability of observing an incident of civil war in any one of 161 countries between 1960-1999.It is possible to show that the relatively high prevalence of civil war in Africa is not due to extreme ethno-linguistic fragmentation, but rather to high levels of poverty, heavy dependence on resource-based primary exports and, especially, to failed political institutions.
The risk of civil war in any five-year period is relatively high, at nearly 25%. Africa's proclivity to internal large-scale political violence stands in sharp contrast to the realities of Europe, North America and South America and the Caribbean. In those regions, the median country's risk of civil war in any five-year period is minimal. However, the risk for the median country in the Middle East and North Africa was also high, where out of each 20 countries, more than three are expected to be at war. East and South Asia is even riskier than Africa, where four out of ten countries are expected to be fighting civil wars.
Four factors drive Africa's propensity toward violent conflict. First, Africa is highly dependent on natural resource exports, which may be looted by rebels to sustain their rebellion. We find that the standard deviation of African countries' resource-dependence is 46% smaller than the standard deviation of non-African countries. Thus, more African countries are closer to the peak of natural resource dependence, which maximizes the threat of war. More importantly, levels of per capita income in Africa are much lower than in the other three developing regions.
Solutions
Simulations of the effect of political liberalization and economic development on the probability of civil war show that the best and fastest strategy to reduce the prevalence of civil war in Africa is to institute democratic reforms that effectively manage the socio-cultural diversity of African societies. We realize that civil wars in socially diverse societies represent an extreme failure of inter-group cooperation and argue that the best conflict prevention strategy is to build institutions for political governance and economic management.
Conclusion
Stopping violent conflicts and civil strife in the sub-region requires collaborative and collective efforts in identifying the causal indicators of conflicts; developing concrete strategies and programmes to prevent, manage and completely resolve these conflicts; documenting, managing and disseminating information on lessons learnt and best practices of conflict prevention and resolution, and peacebuilding across the sub-region; and harnessing indigenous conflict prevention mechanisms while leveraging with contemporary mechanisms to adequately address present and emerging insecurities and violent conflicts.
Reasons
The empirical analysis is based on estimating an empirical model of the probability of observing an incident of civil war in any one of 161 countries between 1960-1999.It is possible to show that the relatively high prevalence of civil war in Africa is not due to extreme ethno-linguistic fragmentation, but rather to high levels of poverty, heavy dependence on resource-based primary exports and, especially, to failed political institutions.
The risk of civil war in any five-year period is relatively high, at nearly 25%. Africa's proclivity to internal large-scale political violence stands in sharp contrast to the realities of Europe, North America and South America and the Caribbean. In those regions, the median country's risk of civil war in any five-year period is minimal. However, the risk for the median country in the Middle East and North Africa was also high, where out of each 20 countries, more than three are expected to be at war. East and South Asia is even riskier than Africa, where four out of ten countries are expected to be fighting civil wars.
Four factors drive Africa's propensity toward violent conflict. First, Africa is highly dependent on natural resource exports, which may be looted by rebels to sustain their rebellion. We find that the standard deviation of African countries' resource-dependence is 46% smaller than the standard deviation of non-African countries. Thus, more African countries are closer to the peak of natural resource dependence, which maximizes the threat of war. More importantly, levels of per capita income in Africa are much lower than in the other three developing regions.
Solutions
Simulations of the effect of political liberalization and economic development on the probability of civil war show that the best and fastest strategy to reduce the prevalence of civil war in Africa is to institute democratic reforms that effectively manage the socio-cultural diversity of African societies. We realize that civil wars in socially diverse societies represent an extreme failure of inter-group cooperation and argue that the best conflict prevention strategy is to build institutions for political governance and economic management.
Conclusion
Stopping violent conflicts and civil strife in the sub-region requires collaborative and collective efforts in identifying the causal indicators of conflicts; developing concrete strategies and programmes to prevent, manage and completely resolve these conflicts; documenting, managing and disseminating information on lessons learnt and best practices of conflict prevention and resolution, and peacebuilding across the sub-region; and harnessing indigenous conflict prevention mechanisms while leveraging with contemporary mechanisms to adequately address present and emerging insecurities and violent conflicts.
Although the sub-region is increasingly volatile to vicious conflicts, it has rich indigenous cultural and social values such as respect, protection of human life, freedom, cooperation and tolerance.
Written by - Jesvin Joseph
Edited by - Prachi Raheja
Written by - Jesvin Joseph
Edited by - Prachi Raheja
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