Forze di pace africane: i soldi dello sviluppo
ai militari?
L'African Peace Facility rischia di essere un precedente
pericoloso, se fosse confermato che elementi militari di "missionio
di pace" possono ora essere finanziati da soldi provenienti
dal fondo europeo per lo sviluppo. L'articolo di Heike Schneider,
coordinatrice uscente di EPLO, ne spiega le molte sfaccettature.
The African Peace Facility
di Heike Schneider –
EPLO
The debates on poverty, politics and violence – for example
on greed versus grievance as motivating factors in conflict – go
on. It has become a commonplace to state that there is no peace
without development, and that the reverse is also true. In this
article, Heike Schneider of the European Peacebuilding Liaison
Office assesses the implications of the EU Africa Peace Facility
for these discussions.
In June, the EU decided to support an African Union
peacekeeping operation in Darfur, Sudan with 12 million euro. For
a period of 12 months the African Union observer mission is now
ensuring that the rules and provisions of the ceasefire in Dafur
are implemented. The mission comprises around 120 observers and a
protection force of 270 military personnel is currently being
recruited.
While there is broad agreement on the peacekeeping mission, its
financing has caused some controversy. To mobilise the necessary
funding a new and innovative mechanism has been used, the African
Peace Facility. The Facility was established this year to finance
peace support operations ranging from traditional peacekeeping
forces with an observer mandate to peace enforcement operations.
At the centre of the debate has been 250 million euros allocated
to the Facility from the 9th European Development Fund, the
financial instrument of the Cotonou Agreement. Even though this
sum represents only 1.25 % of the total EDF envelope, some
analysts argue against this use of money originally intended as
official development assistance for peace support operations. The
EU has declared that it will not include the Facility money in its
accounting for aid spending to the OECD Donor Assistance Committee
(DAC).
EU support to an AU peacekeeping mission marks a change of
direction in the co-operation between the two regional
organisations. Traditionally EU support to Africa’s development
efforts focused on economic cooperation. During the 1990s good
governance moved centre-stage for donors and manifested itself in
a much more political framework for cooperation between the EU and
the 78 countries from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, under
the Cotonou Agreement. Cotonou also includes a solid legal base
for conflict prevention. These developments culminated in the
Facility.
It is important to recall that the Peace Facility is an African
initiative. At the Maputo Summit in 2003, the AU Heads of State
proposed to set up a Peace Support Operation Facility from funds
allocated to their countries under the existing co-operation
agreements with the EU. After watching violent conflicts throw
countries back decades in their development, African Head of State
want to be in a position to tackle one of the greatest obstacles
to poverty alleviation in Africa; namely violent conflict.
A feeling of uneasiness remains. As resources are scarce, more
money for peacekeeping could mean less money for development
cooperation. Should scarce development resources be allocated to
peacekeeping operations? After all from a conflict prevention
perspective it also makes sense to invest more generally in
development. While poverty does not always go hand in hand with
conflict, empirical evidence suggests clear linkages between
certain economic developments and violence. Both development
cooperation and peacebuilding are important. The challenge at the
policy level and in action is to strengthen synergies between the
two. Both NGOs and donors increasingly recognise that development
cooperation must be conflict sensitive. This involves ensuring
that cooperation does not fuel tensions, but rather contributes to
peacebuilding when feasible and necessary.
The EU has also made progress in its own crisis management and
long-term conflict prevention capacity. Initiatives include: a
training network for civilian crisis management; a network of
conflict prevention experts; early warning capacities and NGO
initiatives on democracy and human rights. Why not use EU funds to
strengthen AU capacity to carry out similar tasks? The EU already
supports mediation processes and conflict prevention activities
led by the AU under a small twelve million euro programme. 35
million euros from the Peace Facility are earmarked for capacity
building in the area of peacekeeping operations. But the EU still
lacks a more substantial and comprehensive programme that bundles
the different initiatives and creates capacity in areas relevant
for long term conflict prevention and civilian crisis management.
The up-coming discussions on long-term EU financial planning under
the ‘Financial Perspectives’ should take account of this in
the allocations for conflict prevention and development
cooperation.
