CIAO DATE: 07/04

The Infrastructure of Peace in Africa: Assessing the Peacebuilding Capacity of African Institutions

Executive Summary

In October 2000, the Ford Foundation requested the International Peace Academy’s (IPA) Africa Program to generate a database of institutions managing conflicts and crises in Africa. After consultations, the scope of this project was expanded to comprise an assessment of capacity, and determination of the potential of institutions to respond to crises and conflicts in Africa. This report is the outcome of that exercise and hopes to guide and facilitate the design of the Ford Foundation’s funding strategy for peacebuilding in sub-Saharan Africa. However, it is hoped that this report will also serve to stimulate further discussion by the Ford Foundation and IPA staff, with the involvement of other relevant donors, about the challenges and opportunities for supporting peace and development in Africa. To that end, this report landscapes the condition of capacity in Africa, provides a diagnostic overview of institutional layout at the regional, national and local levels and proposes areas of intervention that can bolster and improve performance. It must be noted from the start that this report claims to be neither exhaustive nor comprehensive. Many important organizations engaged in useful peacebuilding work in Africa have not been included in this report due to logistical and time constraints. The organizations included in the report are merely illustrative of some of the peacebuilding work being conducted in Africa, and are mainly concentrated in conflict areas.

Eleven researchers, five based at IPA and six working in Africa, were involved in generating background papers and carrying out interviews with staff of seven subregional organizations, seventy-eight semiformal organizations and ten community-based organizations (CBOs), drawn from eighteen countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The survey covered three main areas. First, it contextualized the assessment of institutional capacity, the nature and dynamics of conflicts, including their causes and characteristics, in four subregions: West, Southern, Central and East Africa. Second, the survey highlighted the regional characteristics of conflicts, discussing peculiar features that shape security systems in each subregion. Third, the survey assessed the peacebuilding capacity and potential of institutional actors at the regional, national and community levels.

This report is divided into six parts. Part one outlines the background, rationale and methodology as well as the structure of the report. Part two provides an overview of the conflict systems in Africa and analyzes factors that define the security architecture in each subregion. Part three addresses the capacities— strengths, weaknesses and potential—of intergovernmental actors to respond to conflicts and crises in Africa. Part four focuses on semiformal actors in Africa and assesses their performance in each subregion. Part five provides broad observations of the characteristics of Community-Based Organizations from a select number of umbrella bodies. Finally, part six provides a conclusion and general observations crucial for informing the process of designing a funding strategy for peacebuilding in sub-Saharan Africa. This section also offers recommendations on the priority areas to which the Ford Foundation and other donors should consider investing their efforts and resources in their current and future engagements.

Full text (PDF format, 104 pages, 452 KB)