Issue No: 10/2022

Conflict & Resilience Monitor – 22 December 2022

The Conflict and Resilience Monitor offers monthly blog-size commentary and analysis on the latest conflict-related trends in Africa.

UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti

We round off the year with a bumper edition of the Conflict and Resilience Monitor that touches on a number of key topics and thematic areas.  Our first article is from Emebet Getachew, the Country Manager for Peace Building in Ethiopia at the Life and Peace Institute, who writes about the recently concluded Ethiopian peace talks and the areas that need to be addressed for peace to be sustained in Ethiopia.

Our next two articles discuss climate change and its impact on Africa.  Cedric de Coning from ACCORD and NUPI and Hafsa M. Maalim from SIPRI writes about the need to integrate peacebuilding into the climate security concept.  Katongo Seyuba, from SIPRI, writes about the effects of climate change in the Southern African region.

Our fourth article is from Prof Kwesi DLS Prah, a historian based at UNISA, who writes about the need for Africa to control its own narrative. For our fifth and sixth articles we head to Southern Africa, where Prof Gabriel Kabanda, Adjunct Professor of Machine Learning at Woxsen University, has written about the appointment of former president Joachim Chissano to engage with the international community and creditors on behalf of Zimbabwe.  Prof Khabele Matlosa, visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg, then follows this up with an article on Lesotho and the recently concluded elections. He provides six areas that he believes need to be addressed in order for lasting peace to be achieved in the Kingdom.

Finally, we end the Monitor off with an article from Katharine Bebington, a programme officer at ACCORD, who writes about the state of democracy in Africa and the elections that took place in Senegal, Lesotho and Kenya this year.

Chief Editor: Conflict & Resilience Monitor​
Managing Editor: Conflict & Resilience Monitor​
Assistant Editor: Conflict & Resilience Monitor
Photo: Annette Dubois
Peacebuilding

Beyond power-politics: Ethiopia need to pivot to dialogue

  • Emebet Getachew Abate

Following the recently signed peace agreement between the representatives of the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Ethiopia faces enormous and urgent reconciliation and peacebuilding opportunities and needs. Coupled with the national dialogue process, the peace agreement is a major milestone, implying a new, yet fragile peace paradigm on the horizon.

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Photo: Africa Progress Panel
Environment

The Case for Integrating Sustaining Peace into an Expanded Climate, Peace and Security Concept

  • Cedric de Coning
  • Hafsa Maalim

One of the key themes that emerged from the recently concluded COP27 is the recognition that climate change does not only exacerbate the causes and effects of conflict, but also impacts the capacity of communities and institutions (the African Union or the United Nations, for example) to help make, keep, and build peace in specific contexts.

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Photo: EC/ECHO/Nicolas Le Guen
Environment

Advancing the Climate Security Agenda in the SADC Region

  • Katongo Seyuba

Climate change is affecting prospects for peace and security in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. However, much of the policy and research attention on climate security on the African continent is focused on other regions such as the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. Yet, SADC hosts some of the most fragile and climate vulnerable countries.

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Photo: stephenrwalli
Leadership

Reframing a Narrative – China, Africa, and the futures of the Global South

  • Kwesi DLS Prah

For many, the current deluge of information on international affairs, fake or real, is over-whelming. Ideas and events are conflated into narratives that often distort and disorientate perspective. This is underscored by the obvious disadvantages affecting the Global South, regarding the variety of choice related to the mainstream production and consumption of news.

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Photo: Julius Mucunguzi
Elections

Lesotho’s election brought change: Six things needed to promote peace and democracy

  • Khabele Matlosa

Lesotho’s 2022 general election, its tenth since its independence from Britain in 1966, was unique in more ways than one. It was the first election since the political transition of 1993 to be about key issues facing the nation, rather than personalities.

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Photo: Ilja C. Hendel/Oslo Forum
Livelihood Insecurity & Economic Impact

Chissano champions the Zimbabwe re-engagement drive

  • Gabriel Kabanda

According to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe has hired former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano to lead a group that would work to end the country’s protracted standoff with its creditors and the international community.

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Photo: The Commonwealth
Elections

A Wave of Democracy in Africa in 2022

  • Katharine Bebington

Over the last 2 years, much has been written about the recent increase in coups in Africa. However, despite the challenges to democracy that unconstitutional changes of government  caused some African countries in 2022, the continent has also seen a number of triumphs of the democratic process.

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