Page 38 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 9

AFRIKA IS GOD'S

THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF

CONFLICTS IN AFRICA:

Can the Continent Really Silence the Artilleries?

By: Ronald Elly Wanda

frica for a long time has redress concerns of ‘unjustness’ that Flagship Project of Africa’s Agenda
been profiled as having drive communities to arm them- 2063 that required all Africans to
the highest statistics of selves against each other or against work together towards ending all
Aviolent conflicts in the what many still consider a ‘predato- wars, civil conflicts, gender-based
world. ry’ state. violence, violent conflicts with the
For a long time too, the treatment hope of preventing genocide.
of conflicts in Africa involving Seven years ago, member states Sadly, as we draw the curtains for
communities and national armies of the African Union gathered in 2020, the guns are yet to fully fall si-
has revolved around conventional Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa to lent. Indeed, latest statistics bear out
mechanisms that have excluded commemorate the 50th anniversary the impression that conflict on the
useful traditional approaches of of the organization’s founding. It is continent is actually getting worse,
peace creation which are of much also at that gathering in 2013 that not better.
significance especially in the current representatives from across the con-
politically foggy environment we tinent singled out armed conflict as The Armed Conflict Location &
live in. the biggest barrier to development Event Data Project, which monitors
on the continent. African leaders incidents of conflict around the
In this piece, I want to undermine reaffirmed their commitment to world, found that there had been 21,
African Union’s prominent procla- address the structural root causes of 600 incidents of armed conflict in
mation of ‘Silencing the Guns’ by violent conflicts in Africa, pointing Africa in 2019. For the same period
2020 and instead suggest that we out that ‘Silencing the Guns’ was a in 2018, that number was just 15,

38 | Heal . restore . rebirth . Afrika