December 13, 2006
Nations Unies // Haut Commissariat aux Réfugiés

Abstract:

L’image la plus répandue du camp de réfugié est celle d’un espace fermé et isolé dans lequel des milliers de personnes survivent grâce à l’assistance humanitaire. Cette image ne reflète pourtant pas la diversité des situations rencontrées sur le terrain. Quelle que soit leur forme, ouverts ou fermés, étroitement contrôlés par les autorités du pays d’accueil ou non, les sites de réfugiés ne sont en réalité jamais complètement clos. Le déplacement forcé et le regroupement dans des camps suscitent sans cesse de nouvelles formes de mobilités, qui sont activement recherchées par les individus pour reconstruire un capital économique, social et politique. Lorsque la liberté de circulation des réfugiés est restreinte par les pays d’asile, ces mobilités ne disparaissent pas pour autant. Elles deviennent simplement clandestines et donc invisibles aux yeux de l’observateur non averti. Même des camps tels que Dadaab au Kenya ou Kigoma en Tanzanie, réputés pour leur isolement, se trouvent en réalité au coeur de chaînes migratoires et de transferts financiers considérables entre leurs habitants (S.Turner, 2002 ; Horst, 2002)....

June 1, 2006
Sciences Po // Center For Peace And Human Security

Abstract:

Situated in between Ghana and Benin, with a coastline of no more than 56km, Togo is one of Africa's smallest countries. However, what has habitually been a little talked about West African nation holds a long history of political unrest and has recently entered into a phase of instability in the beginning of 2005. Civil society members and organizations are now regrouped in the WANEP network, (West African Network for Peacebuilding) in a joint effort to set a national agenda toward reconciliation, peace and security and lead the way in facing Togo's unprecedented public health, development and education challenges....

October 14, 2005
Overseas Development Institute // Humanitarian Policy Group

Abstract:

This study aims to identify and test analytical and methodological tools that humanitarian agencies can use to understand the complex and difficult environments in which they work, as well as identify key themes arising from political economy analysis with direct or indirect implications for humanitarian aid interventions. The research looked at four country case studies; the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. The paper is part of an effort exploring how improved political analysis might strengthen relief interventions by examining how political analysis can be used to inform emergency programming that aims to reduce mortality, morbidity and preserve dignity....

October 26, 2004
Crimes of War Project

Abstract:

If a storm can be described as perfect, then the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) in the second half of the 1990s was the "perfect war". Precipitated by the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the fall of the West's client kleptocrat, President Mobutu, and his rotten state, the war in DR Congo was dubbed Africa's First World War. It directly involved the armed forces of six neighbouring states. It drew in factions and rebel groups from other African wars, the remnant armies of defunct neighbouring regimes, and the usual crowd of international profiteers, would-be peacemakers and humanitarians. It was closely connected with armed conflicts in several neighbouring countries, including those in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, and Angola. According to one estimate published in 2003 the war may directly and indirectly have caused the deaths of over 4 million people in DR Congo since 1996. As has become increasingly common in Africa the victims were almost all civilians....

October 15, 2004
Institute for Security Studies

Abstract:

West Africa is a region with a history of senseless wars that have often targeted civilians rather than combatants. In October 1998, Heads of State and Governments of the 16 member states of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)1 formally signed the Moratorium on the importation, exportation, and manufacture of small arms and light weapons (SALW). ECOWAS Member States adopted a code of conduct as well as a plan of action for the implementation of the Moratorium. The creation of national commissions for the fight against illicit trade and possession of small arm, verification strategies, and introduction of enduser certificates constitute major highlights of the document. This article provides a review of events in West Africa that have challenged the effectiveness and relevance of the Moratorium in addressing the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in the region....

December 9, 2010
Partners for Democratic Change

Abstract:

Elisabeth Feleke, Regional Program Manager for West Africa for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) based in Dakar, Senegal, was interviewed by West Africa Democracy Radio on the topic of gender and security sector governance. The interview took place at the “Gender Mainstreaming in the Senegalese Armed Forces”, event co-hosted by Partners African Institute for Security Sector Transformation (AISST), held in October, 2010 in Dakar, with the Ministry of Armed Forces and a diverse platform of current and former military leaders and civil society experts....

July 5, 2011
International Crisis Group

Abstract:

Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) moved into North Sudan's South Kordofan state capital Kadugli at the start of the month, triggering large-scale fighting with Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) units from the region. The UN reported heavy bombardment of villages by the SAF, widespread civilian casualties and at least 73,000 people forced to flee. It also accused the government of blocking aid deliveries and intimidating peacekeepers.

Violence spilled over into South Sudan, with several villages bombed by the North. On 28 June the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (North) signed an agreement on political and security arrangements for South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

In Afghanistan, a standoff between parliament and President Hamid Karzai threatens to deepen the country's political crisis.

Proposals by Senegal's ruling party to amend the constitution were condemned by opposition politicians as undemocratic and sparked unprecedented violent protests. Myanmar/Burma saw its worst clashes since 2009, as fighting broke out between government forces and the Kachin ceasefire group. Tens of thousands have been displaced and some 20 reportedly killed.

In Mexico, a number of incidents highlighted the deterioration in security around Monterrey, the country's second city, industrial hub and capital of Nuevo León state.

In Venezuela, speculation about President Hugo Chávez's health intensified, leading to infighting within his ruling PSUV party and highlighting the country's lack of alternative leadership.

...

July 13, 2006
Project on International Courts and Tribunals // African International Courts and Tribunals

Abstract:

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS/CEDEAO) is well known for its military intervention in Liberia and Sierra Leone. ECOWAS was created in 1975 to replace the Customs Union of West African States originally created in 1959 to redistribute customs duties collected by the coastal states of West Africa. The Treaty on the Economic Community of West African States was revised at the Cotonou Summit of July 1993 to replace the inexistent Tribunal originally envisioned with a Community Court of Justice....

July 13, 2006
Project on International Courts and Tribunals // African International Courts and Tribunals

Abstract:

The Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA) is the court of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), one of the most successful regional legal harmonization efforts on the Continent. Unlike the other continental regional integration groups, OHADA does not seek to conform national law to an overarching treaty and successive regulations and directives, which allow national legislature some leeway. Instead, OHADA uses the integration method of issuing binding uniform acts that automatically supercede all prior and future inconsistent national laws. With the goal of creating a secure, simple and modern legal framework for the conduct of business in Africa, OHADA has issued eight uniform acts on general commercial law, commercial companies and economic interest groups, securities, arbitration, simplified recovery procedures and measures of execution, collective insolvency and accounting....

July 13, 2006
Project on International Courts and Tribunals // African International Courts and Tribunals

Abstract:

The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) was established when the CFA was devalued in order to ensure coherent monetary and economic policy among the states of the CFA zone. The Court of Justice is intended to assist in the enforcement of that coherence. The Court of Justice, alongside the Court of Auditors, functions as the juridical arm of WAEMU, with automatic jurisdiction over all Member States of the Union. Avoiding the perennial delays seen in the entry into force of the Protocol Establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, the Treaty provided that the Protocol on the Court would be an integral part of the Treaty with no need for ratifications. Addressing further the Continental problem of implementation, the Treaty required that the Court come into being within six months of the Treaty entering into force. With financial help from France and the European Union, these Treaty provisions were fulfilled and the first judges of the Court were sworn in on January 27, 1985. Not meeting the three month deadline in the Treaty, the judges fully operationalized the Court by promulgating #the Rules of Procedure in July 1986. In 1997, the addition of Guinea Bissau to WAEMU resulted in the expansion of the bench to nine judges. The Additional Act that initiating this expansion also included the specification that judges on the Court are chosen from among those persons guaranteeing independence and juridical competence, emphasizing that the Court is to be wholly separate from the political sphere of the Union....

June 1, 2006
Energy Information Administration

Abstract:

Regional leaders created the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on May 28, 1975 in Lagos, Nigeria. ECOWAS is comprised of 15 countries, which include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire , The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria , Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. The leaders established ECOWAS to promote regional integration and economic growth in West Africa, as well as to create a monetary union in the region. However, ECOWAS has encountered problems in the process of regional integration including: political instability and lack of good governance that has plagued many member countries, the insufficient diversification of national economies, the absence of reliable infrastructure, and the multiplicity of organizations for regional integration with the same objectives....

May 31, 2006
Human Rights Watch

Abstract:

Un juge d'instruction belge vient de délivrer un mandat d'arrxc3xaat international pour violation massive des droits de l'homme à l'encontre de l'ancien dictateur tchadien Hissxc3xa8ne Habré. Hissxc3xa8ne Habré, le « Pinochet africain » qui est poursuivi pour des atrocités commises alors qu'il était président du Tchad de 1982 à 1990, vit actuellement en exil au Sénégal. En 2000, il avait été inculpé dans ce pays de complicité de crimes contre l'humanité, d'actes de torture et de barbarie, avant que la justice sénégalaise ne se déclare incompétente pour le juger. Ce mandat d'arrxc3xaat représente une étape décisive dans la longue lutte engagée par les victimes de Habré pour le faire traduire en justice, et devrait aboutir à son extradition du Sénégal vers la Belgique....

September 11, 2008
World Politics Review

Abstract:

Stepped up U.S. drug enforcement and interdiction in Latin America, coupled with a falling dollar and a surging demand for cocaine on the streets of Europe, is leading to political and economic chaos across West Africa, where international narco-traffickers have established their most recent, and lucrative, staging grounds. In fact, the drug trade is fast turning large parts of the region into areas that are all but ungovernable -- with major implications for international security. "The former Gold Coast is turning into the Coke Coast," said a 2008 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). "The problem is so severe that it is threatening to bring about the collapse of some West African states where weak and corrupt governments are vulnerable to the corrosive influence of drug money." Though hardly alone in West Africa, Guinea-Bissau, the world's fifth poorest country, with a population of 1.5 million, has for all intents and purposes become the textbook example of the African "narco-state." Due to its relative proximity to South America, its hundreds of miles of unpatrolled coastline, islands and islets, along with the fact that Portuguese is its lingua franca, Guinea-Bissau has been increasingly targeted by South American drug lords as a preferred traffic hub for European-bound cocaine, according to the UNODC. What's more, as citizens of a former Portuguese colony, Guineans do not need visas to enter that EU country, further facilitating the movement of drugs. Authorities there can do precious little about it. "Guinea-Bissau has lost control of its territory and cannot administer justice," declared Antonio Maria Costa, the UNODC executive director, in a statement before the U.N. Security Council in December. "There is a permeability of judicial systems and a corruptibility of institutions in West Africa," he added. "Guinea-Bissau is under siege. Literally under siege." Guinea-Bissau enjoys plenty of company among its neighbors: To varying degrees, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Cape Verde, Guinea-Conakry, Togo, Benin, Senegal, South Africa, and other West African and sub-Saharan states (including already-challenged states like Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Liberia) are all beginning to feel the long reach of cocaine smuggling....

October 22, 2004


Abstract:

Website of the Africa Union.

August 26, 2004


Abstract:

After a feasibility study conducted throughout the sub-region, representatives of seven West African countries in 1998 officially launched WANEP in Accra Ghana. They created WANEP as a mechanism to harness peacebuilding initiatives and to strengthen collective interventions that were already bearing good fruits in Liberia, the Northern Region of Ghana, and Sierra Leone.

August 11, 2011
The Middle East Institute

Abstract:

This Policy Brief examines the real and imagined influence of al-Qa‘ida in North Africa and the Sahel. Despite a perception of the transnationalization of terrorist movements in North Africa under al-Qa‘ida’s banner, robust evidence of an effective al-Qa‘ida’s expansion in the Maghreb and the Sahara/Sahel region remains elusive at best. Rather, doubts about al-Qa‘ida’s actual threat and the efficacy of international response in the context of pervasive state failure in the Sahel raise questions regarding the policy objectives of US-led counter-terrorism in the region....

July 8, 2011
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Abstract:

This report, Senegal: Assessing Risks to Stability, is part of a series examining the risks of instability in 10 African countries over the next decade. The 10 papers are designed to be complementary but can also be read individually as self-standing country studies. An overview paper draws on common themes and explains the methodology underpinning the research. The project was commissioned by the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The papers in this study are not meant to offer hard and fast predictions about the future. While they sketch out some potential scenarios for the next 10 years, these efforts should be treated as thought experiments that look at how different dynamics might converge to create the conditions for instability. The intention is not to single out countries believed to be at risk of impending disaster and make judgments about how they will collapse. Few, if any, of the countries in this series are at imminent risk of breakdown. All of them have coping mechanisms that militate against conflict, and discussions of potential “worst-case scenarios” have to be viewed with this qualification in mind....

July 8, 2011
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Abstract:

This report provides an overview of the CSIS study series examining the risks of instability in 10 African countries over the next decade. The 10 papers are designed to be complementary but can also be read individually as self-standing country studies. The overview draws on common themes and explains the methodology underpinning the research. The project was commissioned by the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The papers in this series are not meant to offer hard and fast predictions about the future. While they sketch out some potential scenarios for the next 10 years, these efforts should be treated as thought experiments that look at how different dynamics might converge to create the conditions for instability. The intention is not to single out countries believed to be at risk of impending disaster and make judgments about how they will collapse. Few, if any, of the countries in this series are at imminent risk of breakdown. All of them have coping mechanisms that militate against conflict, and discussions of potential “worst-case scenarios” have to be viewed with this qualification in mind....

July 8, 2011
Chatham House

Abstract:

I consider it a singular honour to have been invited today by Chatham House to address this august forum. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which I represent, is a regional organisation which has, over the years, gained your attention only for the unfortunate reasons of state implosion and instability caused by bad governance and marginalisation. I therefore welcome the opportunity to throw further light on its objectives, challenges, and achievements, which factors have effectively brought together fifteen West African states in the enterprise of improving upon the living standards of 230 million people as well as integrating them.

The term ‘Chatham House Rule’ is today an internationally-accepted cliché that this Institute has contributed to international diplomacy discourse, a reference norm in rigorous and policy-oriented exchanges on global peace and security. I therefore view your invitation to lead today’s discourse about ‘Democracy in the context of Regional Integration in West Africa’ as an unique honour for me personally, and a recognition of ECOWAS as a leading brand in regional integration.

Ladies and gentlemen, the evolution of ECOWAS can only be properly understood against the backdrop of the fascinating history and circumstances of West Africa since establishing contact with the world beyond its borders. The fact that slavery, colonialism, as well as racial and economic marginalisation, had left an intrinsic yearning for freedom, unity and solidarity among peoples of African descent everywhere defines its wish to integrate its states and peoples....

June 9, 2011
Peace & Conflict Review

Abstract:

The level of women’s participation in armed violence in Africa is determined by the nature and typology of conflict. Using prior research as a data source, the article examines the nature of women’s participation in on-going and recently-concluded armed conflicts in 15 countries in Africa. Based upon data that show variations, and similarities in the contextual conditions under which women become war participants, this article presents three kinds of wars, and the conditions that distinguish them from one another, as a theoretical framework in analysing women’s involvement in Africa’s armed conflicts. The findings show that in ‘resources/opportunistic’ driven wars, women’s participation is higher and more complex when compared to ‘ethno-religious’ and ‘secessionist/autonomy’ driven wars. Moreover, this paper finds that women’s participation can be active and passive; coerced and voluntary....