Africa has much of what it takes to go it alone

The African Standby Force could become a reality this July. It is about time it did. The United Nations expressed its “happiness” at the prospect after the UN peacekeeping chief, told a Security Council meeting earlier this week that the ASF is about to be declared operational at the next AU summit in July. One can understand the UN’s hopeful exuberance. Nine of the UN’s 16 peacekeeping missions are in Africa. But the hope lies in Africa’s demonstrated, if willing peacekeeping capabilities with the number of troop contributions around the world. Almost 50 percent of the 105,000 UN peacekeepers worldwide come from AU member states. This should mean something. It means that the ASF cannot merely fail for lack of experienced personnel. Over 50,000 African troop contributions are more than the ASF requires. The AU plan is for 25,000 troops – 5000 from each of the continent’s five regions — Eastern, Western, Central, Northern and Southern. Under this arrangement in a volatile continent, the plan is to always have at least one regional force on standby to respond swiftly to crises anywhere in Africa. But it has not been as easy as it sounds. The ASF’s operationalisation has had a few false starts. Two roadmaps had elaborated how the operationalisation would take place in 2008 and 2010, then by 2013, before it was deferred to 2015. It is now 2016. This week’s announcement was short on the details. And one would like to see how the ASF will be operationalised and sustainably discharge its mandate. As Africa’s hefty troop contribution around the world shows, the problem is clearly not the quality of personnel. But one should hope the AU has conducted an audit of the technical capabilities and availability of military assets on the continent. The problem, as analysts do not tire to point out, is the continent’s high dependency on external support, which compromises the idea of African ownership of peace and security. The dependence puts a damper on the very notion of “African solutions for African problems”. A policy brief not too long by the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies pointed out some few home-truths about how Africa can afford its peacekeeping burden. (See “Africa can solve its own problems with proper planning and full implementation of the African Standby Force”). The brief particularly harped on one suggestion that has variously been doing the rounds. The suggestion was, to save costs, African countries should refrain from using their involvement in peacekeeping operations as a source of national income, but rather charge the AU the actual incremental cost of deployment and for the replacement of equipment lost during operations. African militaries pay their troops modestly, it asserted, so their contingents should not be as expensive as they currently are. The policy brief suggested that more should be done to convince big regional powers to pull their weight. It noted how some argue that South Africa is doing far less than it should given the strength of its economy. And, Egypt, for instance, with its enormous transport fleet could offer to airlift troops to conflict zones. In fact, with proper cooperation and coordination, Africa might not need to rely on US and European for the airlifting of troops, since the aircraft in African air forces are already capable of transporting everything but heavy vehicles. This may be resolved by a reconfiguration of capabilities. What all this shows is that Africa has much of what it takes to go it alone to respond and contain crises anywhere in on the continent. This despite the fact that, only two regions – Eastern and West Africa – seem the most advanced in terms of technical and military capacity to fulfill their role towards the formation of the ASF. Whatever the case, we should welcome the news that the African Standby Force is set to become a reality this July. The details can always be worked out.

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Africa has much of what it takes to go it alone