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Update Report No. 4: Security Council Summit on Africa

Update Report in Word Format • PDF Format

Expected Council Action
As Council president this month, France will be convening a summit-level meeting on Africa on 25 September. French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be presiding over the meeting. The President of Ghana, current Chair of the African Union, will also participate. Similar high-level participation by many of the other Security Council members is anticipated, especially in view of the fact that this debate in the Council appears to have been timed to coincide with the likely presence of high-level dignitaries during the General Assembly’s General Debate. An outcome document is not envisaged at the end of the Council’s deliberations on 25 September. The purpose is rather to take stock, in a wide ranging conversation, of the situation in Africa.

Background
On 12 September, France circulated a concept paper on Africa and the challenges to international peace and security. The paper focused on the need for the international community to further support the efforts being made by Africans to attain peace and stability on the continent. It suggested ongoing challenges in the following areas:

• effective consolidation of peace to prevent relapse into conflict in areas recently emerging out of violent strife (West Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo), through enhancing the rule of law, security sector reform and mobilisation of long-term donor support;
• bringing closure to ongoing conflicts, and their associated political, security and humanitarian crises (Darfur, Chad, Central African Republic and Somalia); and
• linkages to global threats, including environmental challenges, drugs and arms trafficking, illegal exploitation of natural resources, mercenarism, terrorism, as well as unmonitored migration and cross-border movement of armed groups that dovetail into the fuelling of conflicts in Africa.

The paper also raised for discussion the need for these challenges to be dealt with along the following lines:

• consistent efforts by the international community through better utilisation of instruments at the disposal of the UN (the identified mechanisms included peacekeeping operations, the Council’s sanctions measures, protection of civilians and vulnerable populations in conflict situations);
• promotion of effective partnership between the UN and Africa, based on African regional organisations, especially in strengthening African crisis management and resolution as well as in meeting its peacekeeping needs, supporting post-conflict recovery efforts and establishing more operational crisis prevention mechanisms; and
• involvement of non-African mechanisms including wider regional organisations, individual states, civil society, private companies and NGOs to complement the efforts of the UN and Africa.

Council Dynamics
President Sarkozy has indicated that Africa “will remain a crucial foreign policy priority” for his country as well “a central focus of the European Union’s cooperation policy.” To further mobilise the international community to address the challenges of peace and security on the continent the convening of the upcoming meeting of the Council at the level of heads of states and government was initiated to refocus attention on the international peace and security issues confronting the continent.

Other members of the Council appear to be generally agreed on the value of the debate, especially if it can help promote ways of tackling the myriad challenges posed to security on the African continent which occupy much of its agenda.

African members of the Council have initially taken the lead on the need to support and utilise, as far as possible, regional mechanisms in dealing with conflicts in Africa and this approach has attracted wider support in recent months, especially in practical terms regarding the hybrid UN/AU operation for Darfur.

For many members an important issue regarding the debate is its duration. Due to constraints of time stemming mainly from other competing engagements associated with participation of high-level dignitaries in activities of the General Debate of the General Assembly, participation in the meeting will be restricted to only Council members, the Secretary-General and the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Alpha Konare. Much of the wider membership of the UN is likely to be present at the meeting as observers. The duration of the summit is not expected to exceed one and a half hours.

Key Facts
This summit represents yet another high profile initiative by the Council aimed at focusing on the challenges facing Africa, a continent whose issues continue to occupy much of the agenda of the Council. The Council held its first ever ministerial-level meeting on Africa intended to highlight the challenges facing the continent and to develop a basis for political and economic success on the continent in September 1997, with the US presiding (S/PV.3819). The presidential statement that resulted from the meeting called on the Secretary-General to prepare a report that generated recommendations for a “comprehensive response” to the challenges in Africa (S/PRST/1997/46). This spawned two reports from the Secretary General —The causes of conflict and the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa in April 1998 (S/1998/318) and Prevention of armed conflict in June 2001(A/55/985)—and a series of resolutions and presidential statements on conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding between 1998 and 2001.

The Council held another meeting devoted exclusively to the continent on 31 January 2002 with Mauritius presiding (S/PV.4465). It culminated in a presidential statement highlighting the following elements regarding conflict prevention and resolution in Africa (S/PRST/2002/2):

• the importance of enhancing cooperation between the UN and regional and subregional organisations in Africa;
• the value of more effective cooperation between the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council to address humanitarian crises that lead to conflict;
• the need for the international community to step up its efforts to fight HIV/AIDS and strengthen programmes that assist refugees and facilitate disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR); and
• that the Council consider setting up a working group to monitor the above recommendations (this was subsequently realised with the setting up of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa in March 2002).

Under Benin’s chairmanship of the Working Group in 2005, the Council held a summit meeting at which resolution 1625 was adopted unanimously by heads of state and government who had gathered at the UN for the September 2005 World Summit. The resolution provided a context for future efforts in conflict prevention, particularly in Africa. Benin had previously conducted a policy forum on 13 June 2005, entitled “Enhancing the UN’s Capacity for Conflict Prevention: The Role of the Security Council.” Among the conclusions reached at this event, which influenced the elements of resolution 1625, was the view that coordination among UN agencies and cooperation between the UN and regional organisations could be improved.

As a follow-up to 1625, during the presidency of Congo in August this year, an open debate was held on the issue of conflict prevention in Africa. A presidential statement issued at the end of the meeting, among other things, anticipated a related seminar that is expected to be held in November and requested the Secretary-General to provide the Council with a report on options for further implementation of resolution 1625 within sixty days. It welcomed the June agreement between the Security Council and the AU’s Peace and Security Council which emphasised the need for African subregional entities to strengthen their capacities in early warning and conflict prevention to respond more promptly to the emerging threats to security in their areas.

The Council has also undertaken a number of missions to the continent, the latest being from 14 to 21 June. During the mission, representatives of the Council visited five countries. Visits to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Accra in Ghana focused on developing strategies for enhancing cooperation between the UN and regional organisations, especially the AU. The three remaining countries visited were areas of conflict (the DRC, Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan). Other Council missions to Africa in previous years have been:

Security Council Missions to Africa (1992-2006)

Underlying Problems
Underlying problems include timely prevention and resolution of conflicts on the continent, as well as effective consolidation of peace including: security sector reform; good democratic governance; transitional justice and rule of law; DDR; peacebuilding; sustainable development; humanitarian assistance; and return of refugees and internally displaced persons.

Also, there are the problems of ensuring enhanced coherence of international efforts and resources in adequate funding, sustained political will and commitment by the international community, as well as the need to come up with innovative strategies or policies to effectively tackle the challenges posed to peace and security in Africa.

UN Documents

Useful Additional Resources

• Security Council Report, Update Report on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, 24 August 2007
• Security Council Report, Update Report on UN and Regional Organisations, 23 March 2007
• Speech of Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic, XVth Ambassador’s Conference, 27 August 2007

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