Download or read book The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa written by Alexandre Marc and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-06-19 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since independence, the West African sub-region has been an arena for a number of large-scale conflicts and civil wars, as well as simmering and low-intensity uprisings. Contrary to perceptions, West Africa in its post-independence history has experienced fewer conflict events and fatalities from conflict than the other sub-regions on the continent. The turn of the millennium has witnessed the recession of large-scale and conventional conflict, and it has ushered in new and emerging threats. The specters of religious extremism, maritime piracy, and narcotics trafficking threaten to undermine some of the progress achieved in recent years. The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa critically examines the key drivers of conflict and violence, and the way in which they impact the countries of the sub-region. In addition to emerging threats, these drivers include the challenges of youth inclusion, migration, sub-regional imbalances, and extractives, as well as challenges related to the fragility of political institutions and managing the competition for power, reform of the security sector, and weakness of institutions related to land management. The book explores how the sub-region, under the auspices of the regional organization ECOWAS, has become a pioneer on the continent in terms of addressing regional challenges. The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa also identifies key lessons in the dynamics of resilience in the face of political violence and civil war drawn from CÃ ́te d'Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, that can be useful for countries around the world in similar situations. It incorporates knowledge and findings from leading experts and provides insights from academics and development practitioners. Finally, the book identifies possible policy and programmatic responses and directions for policy dialogue at the national and international levels.

Download or read book The Challenge of Sub regional Security in West Africa written by Linda Darkwa and published by Nordic Africa Institute. This book was released on 2011 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Discussion Paper provides insights into the challenges posed by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in West Africa, paying particular attention to the ECOWAS convention on small arms and light weapons as a collective sub-regional response to a potent threat to peace, security and development. It connects global and regional discourses on illicit arms control and provides a balanced, empirical xamination of the performance of the convention. It is a useful contribution to debates on arms-proliferation control in Africa and provides well-informed recommendations of interest to scholars, peace activists, policy practitioners and strategists working on peace and security in Africa.

Download or read book West Africa s Security Challenges written by Adekeye Adebajo and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a context for understanding West Africa's security dilemmas, highlighting the link between failures of economic development, governance, and democratization on the one hand and military insecurity and violent conflicts on the other.

Download or read book Civil Society Good Governance and the Challenge of Regional Security in West Africa written by R. A. Akindele and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Globalization and Environmental Challenges written by Hans Günter Brauch and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-01-23 with total page 1141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Put quite simply, the twin impacts of globalization and environmental degradation pose new security dangers and concerns. In this new work on global security thinking, 91 authors from five continents and many disciplines, from science and practice, assess the worldwide reassessment of the meaning of security triggered by the end of the Cold War and globalization, as well as the multifarious impacts of global environmental change in the early 21st century.

Download or read book The Challenge of Drug Trafficking to Democratic Governance and Human Security in West Africa written by David Edward Brown and published by Army War College Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International criminal networks mainly from Latin America and Africa -- some with links to terrorism -- are turning West Africa into a key global hub for the distribution, wholesaling, and production of illicit drugs. These groups represent an existential threat to democratic governance of already fragile states in the sub-region because they are using narco-corruption to stage coups d'état, hijack elections, and co-opt or buy political power. Besides a spike in drug-related crime, narcotics trafficking is also fraying West Africa's traditional social fabric and creating a public health crisis, with hundreds of thousands of new drug addicts. While the inflow of drug money may seem economically beneficial to West Africa in the short-term, investors will be less inclined to do business in the long-term if the sub-region is unstable. On net, drug trafficking and other illicit trade represent the most serious challenge to human security in the region since resource conflicts rocked several West African countries in the early 1990s. International aid to West Africa's "war on drugs" is only in an initial stage; progress will be have to be measured in decades or even generations, not years and also unfold in parallel with creating alternative sustainable livelihoods and addressing the longer-term challenges of human insecurity, poverty, and underdevelopment.

Download or read book Nation States and the Challenges of Regional Integration in West Africa The case of Liberia written by and published by KARTHALA Editions. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of the multitude of challenges facing Liberia as it emerges from a devastating civil conflict, none is more fundamental than the challenge of reconciliation and capacity-building in the context of the country's reintegration into the West Africa sub-region. Such was the finding of a two-day Liberian National Seminar on Regional Integration held in Monrovia on 21-22 January 2008. This book is a compendium of research by Liberians for the seminar, under a project of UNESCO's Department for Human and Social Sciences, which attempts to discuss these and other challenges facing Liberia as the nation emerges from a decade-long upheaval that destroyed most of its human and materila resources. The seminar papers reproduced in this book tackle a range of themes seeking to explain how the African continent's oldest Republic reached this crucial point, and exploring what remains to be done both by the country and by the region before Liberia can fully reintegrate with its neighbouring States within regional structures that are its best bet for securing a peaceful and prosperous future.

Download or read book African security in the twenty first century written by Stephen Emerson and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-24 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores and analyses the evolving African security paradigm in light of the multitude of diverse threats and challenges facing the continent and the international community. It challenges current thinking and traditional security constructs as woefully inadequate to meet the real security needs of African governments and their 1 billion plus citizens in an increasingly globalised and interdependent world. Through the lens of human security the authors’ examine the continent’s most pressing security challenges—from identity conflict and failing states to terrorism, disease, and environmental degradation—and in doing so provide a comprehensive look at the complexities of building peace and stability in modern-day Africa. Not only does the book critically assess the state of progress in addressing security challenges, but it presents new strategies and tools for more effectively engaging Africans and the global community in their common search for solutions.

Download or read book Regional Organizations in African Security written by Fredrik Soderbaum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The African continent is plagued by some of the most brutal and violent conflicts in the world. At the same time that warfare is changing, so has the state’s capacity to provide security and political stability to its citizens. This book deals with the role of regional organizations in Africa’s security. It focuses on three basic—yet often overlooked—questions: (1) the advantages and disadvantages of African regional and sub-regional organizations vis-à-vis other security mechanisms, (2) the official and unofficial reasons to intervene, and (3) whether security is actually protected by the peace activities carried out by the regional organizations. The contributors to the book—all leading researchers in the field—systematically assess and compare the role of the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This book was based on a special issue of African Security.

Download or read book State and Societal Challenges in the Horn of Africa written by Alexandra Magnólia Dias and published by Centro de Estudos Internacionais. This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings to fruition the research done during the CEA-ISCTE project ‘’Monitoring Conflicts in the Horn of Africa’’, reference PTDC/AFR/100460/2008. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) provided funding for this project. The chapters are based on first-hand data collected through fieldwork in the region’s countries between 4 January 2010 and 3 June 2013. The project’s team members and consultants debated their final research findings in a one-day Conference at ISCTE-IUL on 29 April 2013. The following authors contributed to the project’s final publication: Alexandra M. Dias, Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho, Aleksi Ylönen, Ana Elisa Cascão, Elsa González Aimé, Manuel João Ramos, Patrick Ferras, Pedro Barge Cunha and Ricardo Real P. Sousa.

Download or read book Building Peace in West Africa written by Adekeye Adebajo and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2002 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The International Peace Academy

Download or read book Security Sector Governance in Francophone West Africa written by Alan Bryden and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2011 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experience shows that successful democratic transitions need to be underpinned by a security sector that is effective, well managed, and accountable to the state and its citizens. This is why it is so important to carefully examine security sector governance dynamics in contexts where security has often remained a 'reserved domain.' Understanding the issues and perspectives that divide political elites, the security sector, and citizens is the only way to develop security sector reform programs that are legitimate and sustainable at the national level. Through drawing on the close contextual knowledge of practitioners, researchers, and diverse local actors, this book supports this goal by analyzing security sector governance dynamics in each of the nine Francophone countries within West Africa. From this basis, strengths and weaknesses are analyzed, local capacities evaluated, and entry points identified to promote democratic security sector governance in the West African region. (Series: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces [DCAF])

Download or read book Regional Economic Communities written by Olutayo, Akinpelu O. and published by CODESRIA. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how the existence of overlapping regional institutions has presented a daunting challenge to the workings of various Regional Economic Communities (RECs) on the African continent. The majority of the African countries are members of overlapping and, sometimes, contradictory RECs. For instance, in East Africa, while Kenya and Uganda are both members of EAC and COMESA, Tanzania, which is also a member of the EAC, left COMESA in 2001 to join SADC. In West Africa, while all former French colonies belong to ECOWAS, they simultaneously keep membership of UEMOA, an organization which is not recognized by the African Union (AU). Such multiple and confusing memberships create unnecessary duplication and dims the light on what ought to be priority. Various chapters in this book have therefore sought to identify and proffer solutions to related challenges confronting the workings of the RECs in different sub-regions of the African continent. The discourses range from security to the stock exchange, identity integration, development framework, labour movement and cross-border relations. The pattern adopted in the book involves devolution of related discussions from the general to the specific; that is, from the continental level to sub-regional case studies.

Download or read book Challenges of Security Sector Governance in West Africa written by Alan Bryden and published by Lit Verlag. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is currently no comprehensive study of the status of security sector governance in West Africa. Many efforts to understand governance of the security sector in Africa have been directed either at individual countries or at providing a general analysis of the state and security in Africa. This book is intended to contribute to confidence and peace-building through developing a better understanding of the challenges of security sector governance and generating practical policy recommendations based on work conducted by West African experts. It analyses the nature of security sector governance in each of the 16 West African states, provides an assessment of the effectiveness of governance mechanisms, in particular relating to democratic oversight of the security sector, and takes into account the regional and international dimensions to the issue.

Download or read book Regional Integration in West Africa written by Eswar Prasad and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Assessing the potential benefits and risks of a currency union Leaders of the fifteen-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have set a goal of achieving a monetary and currency union by late 2020. Although some progress has been made toward achieving this ambitious goal, major challenges remain if the region is to realize the necessary macroeconomic convergence and establish the required institutional framework in a relatively short period of time. The proposed union offers many potential benefits, especially for countries with historically high inflation rates and weak central banks. But, as implementation of the euro over the past two decades has shown, folding multiple currencies, representing disparate economies, into a common union comes with significant costs, along with operational challenges and transitional risks. All these potential negatives must be considered carefully by ECOWAS leaders seeking tomeet a self-imposed deadline. This book, by two leading experts on economics and Africa, makes a significant analytical contribution to the debates now under way about how ECOWAS could achieve and manage its currency union, andthe ramifications for the African continent. "

Download or read book The State of Peacebuilding in Africa written by Terence McNamee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-02 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book on the state of peacebuilding in Africa brings together the work of distinguished scholars, practitioners, and decision makers to reflect on key experiences and lessons learned in peacebuilding in Africa over the past half century. The core themes addressed by the contributors include conflict prevention, mediation, and management; post-conflict reconstruction, justice and Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration; the role of women, religion, humanitarianism, grassroots organizations, and early warning systems; and the impact of global, regional, and continental bodies. The book's thematic chapters are complemented by six country/region case studies: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan/South Sudan, Mozambique and the Sahel/Mali. Each chapter concludes with a set of key lessons learned that could be used to inform the building of a more sustainable peace in Africa. The State of Peacebuilding in Africa was born out of the activities of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP), a Carnegie-funded, continent-wide network of African organizations that works with the Wilson Center to bring African knowledge and perspectives to U.S., African, and international policy on peacebuilding in Africa. The research for this book was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Download or read book Liberia s Civil War written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: