IGAD Should Act Now
blurb:isstoday2Oct2008IGAD
2 October 2008: IGAD Should Act Now
If Africa is the continent with the greatest challenges in terms of human development, it is the IGAD region that would provide the most vivid example. Here you have both natural and manmade constraints to peace and development on a dramatic scale. Erratic weather, coupled with underdevelopment, has kept large portions of the population of the region in a precarious economic situation. (IGAD, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development has seven member states: Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Eritrea.)
Violent conflict within and between states has contributed its own destructive share to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people who call the region their home. More than in any other part of Africa the link between insecurity and poverty is very real in the Horn of Africa.
This is not to say that there is no progress of any sort in the IGAD region - far from it. Almost all the countries in the region are showing remarkable socio-economic development. Some register double-digit growth, helped in part by high prices for their natural resources such as oil. Others, while growing at a more modest rate, register successes in agricultural production, volume of exports and in health and education. In most countries, school enrollment continues to grow rapidly while infant mortality drops and diseases like malaria are kept at bay.
In a way, except for Somalia- and mainly the south - the other countries in the IGAD region are showing progress to some degree or another, reflecting the general positive trend that is being witnessed across the continent as a whole.
So why the fuss about security and poverty? Why the admonition that there is no time to waste? Because there is much to be worried about. The signs of progress do not mask the underlying insecurity that continues to keep the region vulnerable to sudden setbacks and backsliding.
Setting aside global economic conditions and the trading status quo that work against developing countries in general, the IGAD region suffers from a number of conflicts that have become endemic. Unless some measure of progress is achieved in dealing with the underlying security challenges, the current economic progress made can be reversed without much difficulty. Even without the threat of conflict, it has been seen that a bad rainy season and slowdowns in project implementation can bring a country from the cusp of power exportation to substantial power shedding and a reduction of expectations in a short period of time.
The political insecurities that attend the continuing inability to establish order in Somalia; the reaching of a workable plan for Ethiopia and Eritrea to reduce the tension between them; the building of trust that enables the parties to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan to prepare to handle peacefully the different outcomes that could emerge from elections and the referendum just around the corner demand the full attention of all those concerned with peace and security in the region, not to mention the local parties involved.
It is not enough to say that the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and IGAD are not deeply concerned about these issues. They are, and they could well be making efforts in one way or another to help out. But all observers would agree that effective initiatives of confidence-building between parties in dispute that would yield real results have yet to be seen. And unless someone somewhere works on them on a fulltime basis, peace and security in the region will be compromised even further and the signs of economic life would fade.
As the premier institution in the region, it is IGAD that will be the first to benefit, or the first to lose from any development that affects the countries that count themselves as its members. Although the common view may be that the political and security issues that afflict the region are beyond the power of IGAD to solve, requiring the full support of the AU and the UN, there is no other option for IGAD but to embark on a series of initiatives to reduce tensions and build confidence among the various actors in the region.
It could be argued that with just a few members, some of which implicated in the conflicts of their neighbors, IGAD is ill placed to deal with the grave political issues in the region, but no one is insisting that IGAD act alone. A glance at the history of the peace processes in Sudan and Somalia would makes it very obvious that actors from outside the region played key roles to bring conflicting groups together. But IGAD was always there, facilitating and providing the political and contextual framework as solutions were reached.
Now is a time for IGAD to do even more. It cannot be a bystander while others make efforts here and there. It has to draw the outlines of possible settlements for the conflicts; identify the steps that need to be taken to reach understandings;identify its own key role in the whole process and draw in the outside world to play a supporting, and at times even a leading role, to bring conflicts to a close.
True, IGAD is working on developing a peace and security strategy that encompasses even new elements that address possible new tensions and conflicts between and within member states in the future. No doubt this is vitally important. But there is no time to lose in dealing with existing conflicts. One step to take could be the establishment of standing negotiating teams with special knowledge about each of the conflicts and deploy them continuously to crack resistance, and generate movement in the direction of dialogue, negotiation, and finally agreement. Will it be difficult? No doubt. Will it be attempting the impossible? Not at all, if there is the determination to succeed.
Hiruy Amanuel, Programme Head,
ICPAT, Addis Ababa Office
