To address the multitude of security challenges facing African countries, governments need to put in place measures that address the root causes, Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Vincent Biruta has said.
Biruta who was part of the last panel discussion of the 11th National Security Symposium in Kigali on Friday, May 24, noted that if governments do not take the lead in addressing underlying issues, conflicts would continue to recur and hold back the continent’s development.
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"Africa faces a wide array of security challenges, including terrorism, insurgency, organised crime and the communal conflicts,’ Biruta noted, adding that these present unique threats to stability and development.
"Root causes of these security challenges are rooted in factors such as poverty, inequalities, weak governance, and historical grievances, which are oftentimes the result of colonial legacy,” he said.
Addressing these root causes is essential for long-term solutions, said the minister.
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"Sometimes we tend to address consequences of a situation, while not really dealing with the root causes. This is the reason why sometimes a conflict will sleep for years and resume after some time.”
"It is the prime responsibility of governments to ensure the safety and the security of their citizens. This entails investing in security forces, implementing effective policies, and putting in place laws, which assure good governance and address underlying grievances,” he said.
As some conflicts went beyond national borders, Biruta said regional and international organisations such as the African Union and the East African Community would be needed to harmonise interventions.
"However,” he noted, "a lack of collaboration among these organisations could also be a source of further complications.”
While governments must take the lead in addressing security challenges, international support is also crucial, Biruta said, adding that this could be realised in terms of capacity building assistance, intelligence sharing and diplomatic efforts to address cross-border threats.
"Investing in preventive measures such as education and community engagement is also crucial to help address the road causes of insecurity and reduce the likelihood of conflict. We also need to be inclusive in the solutions we implement and involve all segments of society, including women, youth and imagined communities starting from the stage of policy drafting and adoption,” he said.
Mali’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdoulaye Diop, noted that some of the root causes of conflicts in Africa were a result of foreign interference by powers that sought to pillage the continent’s resources.
"Colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism are some of the key drivers of instability and insecurity in Africa,” Diop said.
Depredation of natural resources are the key points of interest, he noted.
"One of the key threats to Africa’s security is the presence of foreign military on our soil, which has created chaos and disorder in many countries,” said Diop, who added that foreign intervention had continued to destabilise the continent.
Diop, however, noted that experiences like Rwanda’s recovery from the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi were live examples that the African continent could achieve stability if governments made bold steps.
"[The experience] of Rwanda is quite exemplary, because out of this tragedy Rwanda has emerged as a source of resilience by trying to build community and unity among Rwandans,” Diop said.
For Brig Gen Metodi Hadji-Janev, an Associate Professor who specialises in legal aspects of countering asymmetric, cyber, and hybrid-based threats, digitalisation, if unchecked, could become one of the key threats to Africa’s security in the future.
He said that although digitalisation leads to benefits in terms of innovation and wellbeing, its threat to security will be multidimensional and will reach all aspects of life.
"When you put some of the challenges into a security context, then that is a serious concern,” Hadji-Janev said, adding that issues such as violent radicalisation could prove hard to track in the information age, which is controlled by corporations.
"This new world allows [these corporations] unprecedented trajectory to advance their strategic ends, within a very short period and in very huge volumes. That means that they can mobilise youth through disinformation, they can instigate asymmetric threats,” he said, adding that social media platforms could pose a threat to security in the absence of laws and regulations.