Redesigned AU conflict intervention force suits African needs but requires funding

Redesigned AU conflict intervention force suits African needs but requires funding

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Since 2004, the African Union (AU) has had a framework in place for a continent-wide African Standby Force (ASF).

The force is designed to be multidisciplinary – combining soldiers, civilians and police – and coordinated by the five regional economic communities, with each brigade-sized military component capable of rapid deployment. But it has remained on the shelf and has never actually been used.

Part of the problem is the flawed assumption – made 20 years ago – that underpins it: The AU’s Peace and Security Council, the continental organ responsible for the management of conflicts, was expected to initiate deployment of the ASF. But in fact it has been regional organisations that have increasingly asserted their primacy when it comes to security issues.

It was SADC that deployed troops to Mozambique in 2021, and SADC that took over in 2023 from an East African Community force that had had been at odds with the reality in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. AU endorsement of these missions came after the fact.

With each conflict unique, more organic coalitions have increasingly become the norm – tailored to the specific context. Like REC deployments, these are typically short-term missions, aimed at restoring order before handing over to host governments.

“Some fear that ad hoc coalitions are a fragmentation of the international system and contribute to a kind of delegitimisation of the African Union and United Nations,” Cedric de Coning, a senior researcher at NUPI, said.

“I see ad hocism as the system has become more sophisticated and resilient, able to deal with problems in a greater variety of ways.”

Who pays?

Inevitably money is the key issue. The last large AU missions, launched in Mali in 2013 and the Central African Republic in 2014, were quickly passed wholesale to the UN. The AU’s Peace Fund – moribund for years – only recently reached its $400 million target (actually surpassing it by $208 million following a pledge in July by the African Export-Import Bank). But to put that figure in perspective, AMISOM is estimated to have cost $1.2 billion a year.

The funding difficulties the AU has faced have eroded its influence – incentivising the current patchwork of sub-regional operations and coalitions of the willing. They have typically sought external financing to help maintain their troops in the field.

Money tends to go hand in hand with leverage. Rather than an African-owned initiative, the anti-jihadist five nation G5-Sahel force was set up by France and the EU in 2014 as part of the West’s broader “war on terror” – and folded nine years later when Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger withdrew in opposition to French policies in the region.

In some cases, the start-up costs for these coalitions are initially borne by the contributing countries – in the MNJTF’s case, Nigeria – and international partners are only sought once they have been established, said Tchie.

“Yes, funding is a challenge, but I also see PSOs as an evolution – the result of the inability of the AU to deploy the ASF,” he said.

For years, the AU has been pushing for a global bargain in which African countries provide the troops, and the UN the money. UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ 2023 policy framework, the New Agenda for Peace, recognised that the UN now plays a supporting rather than a leadership role in peacekeeping. He has long backed the use of assessed contributions – stipends from member states – for AU operations.

The breakthrough came in December 2023 when the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2719. It caps UN financial contributions at 75% of the annual budget of an AU mission, with the balance raised from other sources.

To qualify for funding, these missions need to comply with UN financial regulations and human rights policies – and be authorised by the Security Council. Only operations led by the AU will be eligible for UN contributions, which excludes RECs and ad hoc coalitions.

But with Donald Trump as the new US president, multilateral arrangements are likely to come under serious scrutiny. “The first Trump administration strongly opposed the use of UN-assessed contributions for African-led PSOs,” said Chen. “It’s unlikely that they will be supportive of attempts to apply the 2719 framework.”

Resolution 2719 is, nevertheless, a recognition of the growing agency of African institutions. But it doesn’t give them autonomy over peacekeeping decisions and it’s well short of the “African solutions for African problems” shop-soiled mantra.

“The unintended consequence of 2719 is that we would literally give our agency away to some P3 penholder,” noted de Coning. “The AU will have to comply with UN financial regulations and all those slow and burdensome hurdles that made more nimble PSOs attractive in the first place.”

At a more fundamental level, stabilisation missions address the symptoms rather than the causes of insecurity – avoiding exploring the structural issues that can give rise to conflict.

“Militarised efforts in support of a host government against opposition or armed groups can create disincentives for the government to engage in the political dialogue required to resolve the underlying political disagreements,” noted Chen.

Somalia offers a lesson. “Focusing on the security sector in Somalia is wrong,” said de Coning. “The government and international partners should move to improve governance, improve basic services, improve justice – that’s how you defeat al-Shabab, not by military means.”

  • A Tell report / Republished with The New Humanitarian permission
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