UN Peacekeeping in Africa: The End of a Cycle? – Between Changing Warfare, Impossible Mandates and Geopolitics
Megatrends Working Paper 2023 07, 14.08.2023, 13 Pagesdoi:10.18449/2023MTA-WP07
The effectiveness of UN peacekeeping in Africa is increasingly being questioned and its legitimacy put to the test. Complex warfare, unrealistic mandates and geopolitical rivalries are hampering progress. Can the UN and AU pave the way for a new era of peacekeeping?
With the European Peace Facility (EPF), the EU's approach to supporting peace and security in Africa is moving towards a strong focus on military capacity-building. Instead, it should strengthen prevention and peacebuilding dimensions, argues Julian Bergmann (IDOS) in this Megatrends Afrika Spotlight.
Mali currently hosts the German Bundeswehr’s largest foreign deployment. Some 1,400 soldiers are involved in the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) and the European Training Mission (EUTM Mali). Many other member states of the European Union (EU) as well as the United Kingdom (UK) are also heavily involved in Mali militarily, but also politically and in terms of development policy. Regarding a possible extension of both missions, doubts not only hang over their effectiveness, but also their political licence and framework. Mali’s military government, in power since 2020, has adopted a confrontational course towards Western and regional partners, thus putting cooperation to a severe test.