A third of African countries are under military rule. Another third experience conflict, whether with another country, or internally, or through attacks by terror groups. Many other African countries are experiencing, or are on the verge of, violent uprisings because of misgovernance, corruption, stealing of elections or the weaponisation of ethnic or differences or the past.
The conflict in Sudan is the world biggest humanitarian crisis. The Democratic Republic of Congo is being broken apart by civil war, with external actors alleged to be supporting conflict parties. Cameroon is facing secession in its English-speaking region, because of misgovernance by its national government.
Africa’s Sahel has been conflict-ridden for years. Ethiopian remains on a cliff edge. Tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea continues to flare up. Madagascar is the latest African country taken over by military coup. Liberation movement governments in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Mozambique manipulate elections, violently elbow out opposition leaders and parties and imprison critics to stay in power, causing instability in their countries.
Many African voters continue to vote for violent leaders, military leaders or for leaders who weaponise ethnicity, past conflicts and groups different to them. Such leaders perpetuate violence, conflicts and instability – and more underdevelopment.
Military rule in Africa, since Liberia became the first country to become independent in 1847, often perpetuate a continuous cycle of military rule, civil war and breakdown of countries. Research shows African countries often take close to 30 years to return to the level of development at the start of a coup.
Conflicts cause humanitarian crises, genocides, mass starvation and infrastructure, property and asset destruction, and set back development for generations. They lead to the break-up of countries. Furthermore, they cause generational resentments which unleash cycles of revenge, hatred and bitterness, which fuel continuous revenge conflict.
Conflicts in one African country spill over into other countries, as refugees flee to neighbours, putting pressure on recipient countries’ economies, public service and stability. Conflict in one country also often causes conflict in another. Colonial borders were drawn up in such a way that similar communities live in neighbouring countries, so conflicts in between or among groups in one country are easily transported to the kin groups in another.
Conflicts cause mass migration crises across the continent. Conflicts de-industrialise and informalise economies, and increase illicit flows of finances and human trafficking. They break families, destroy communities and leave generational trauma. In conflict, there are no property rights, no rule of law and no investment security, meaning these areas cannot attract long-term investments.
Some emerging powers and global companies have adapted their models to set up in African conflict areas, especially in extractive industries. In fact, resource extraction is almost the only type of investment possible in conflict-ridden African countries. Countries such as China mine resources, by paying off governments and dominant groups, and establish infrastructure directly linking to areas or airports to get resources out as quickly as possible. They mine resources as quickly as possible before violence flares up and new players arrive. In conflict areas there are no institutions or people to hold companies accountable to honour human, workplace or environmental rights.
The implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area is impossible amid continual conflict. Conflicts, corruption and ideologue, criminal, hate-filled and violent leaders are therefore among the biggest reasons for development failure, country breakup and violence in African nations.
African conflicts do not get the same attention from the global media, human rights activists and organisations and international institutions than those in Europe or the Middle East. They also do not get the same attention from developed countries, large emerging powers or global companies.
Sadly, African conflicts also do not get due attention from African media, African human rights organisations and activists. Nor do they get due attention from peer African governments, African regional and continental institutions and organisations. Those continental and regional organisations are constrained in dealing decisively with conflicts, since many of their leader members are military rulers who took power through the gun and therefore lack the credibility to hold fellow violent peers accountable.
In fact, in recent times, most of the mediation of African conflicts has been by non-African third countries, rather than by African continental or regional organisations or individual African countries, which are not part of the conflict.
Global institutions, such as the United Nations, which can intervene to prevent or end conflicts in Africa, have been decimated by funding cuts from the US, as well as capacity constraints and failure to make them more representative. The UN, like all the post-World War 2 multilateral organisations, has been dominated by the big powers, and African conflicts are often not put on its agenda. With the decline of the UN and the lack of credibility among African continental and regional organisations, third countries are increasingly stoking conflicts to secure resources.
South Africa positioned the G20 under its presidency into an alternative G20 “Plus” summit, without the US but including non-G20 members, including African, developing and industrial countries.
Given the centrality of conflict to Africa’s lack of development, the external players involved, South Africa’s G20 presidency was an opportunity to put a global focus on neglected African conflicts, humanitarian crises and wars, and bring together many of the players in African conflicts to try to resolve these conflicts. Many of the non-African, third-party countries accused of helping to stoke many African conflicts in order to secure resources, were also invited to the G20 Summit.
This was given the fact that the US has withdrawn development funding from individual African countries, and from global institutions, while developed countries have also downscaled their development funding.
The US and many developed countries have also downscaled peacekeeping forces in Africa. Because of declines in development funding from the US and developed countries, the UN has suffered budget constraints to strengthening peacekeeping forces in Africa’s conflict areas. African countries, because of their reduced development funding, have also downscaled their own contributions to peacekeeping forces in Africa.
The G20 Summit could have been used to secure more development funding specifically for African countries in conflict, suffering humanitarian crises and food shortages linked to the conflicts, from traditional developed-country donors, but also securing new sources, especially from large developed and emerging-market economies that traditionally do not provide development funding, humanitarian support or peacekeeping services to Africa.
The G20 was also an opportunity to get private sector donors – who do not traditionally do so – to provide development funding for Africa, as well humanitarian support following conflicts. Sadly, this opportunity was missed. DM
This is an edited extract from Professor William Gumede’s presentation at one of the events organised by the Turkish presidency, on the margin events of the G20 Summit, themed “Türkiye’s Humanitarian Diplomacy and Aid for the Peaceful Resolution of Conflicts”.