Cristina Duarte, Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on Africa speaks at the UN Security Council
[Check Against Delivery]
Thank you Mr President.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank the Mozambiquan Presidency for holding this open debate on “the impact of development policies in the implementation of the Silencing the Guns initiative” and for inviting me to brief the Council on this topic.
The African Union Master Roadmap of practical steps to silence the guns in Africa, also known as the “Lusaka roadmap”, identified five areas of action where African Member States, with the support of the international community, needed to advance in order to Silence the Guns in Africa. Out of those five areas, four (economic, social, environmental and legal aspects) refer to issues that are comprised in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in the Africa we Want Agenda.
The structure of the Lusaka master roadmap underscores the relevance that development policies and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the African Union Agenda 2063 have for achieving peace and security in the continent. Unfortunately, this African perspective has not been sufficiently incorporated in global discussions on peace and security in the continent.
For too long, global discussions have considered that the linkages between peace, security and development are constrained to the fact that wars create emergency situations, deviate funds that should be used for development and destroy infrastructure. These facts are accurate, but they present an incomplete picture of the interrelation between peace and development.
As African policymakers acknowledged when designing the Lusaka roadmap, development policies play a substantial role in supporting conflict prevention and resolution. Furthermore, the absence of development policies or the existence of policies and programmes that do not deliver inclusive development can act as a root cause of conflicts. In other words, as the Secretary-General has affirmed, “the flames of conflict are fueled by inequality, deprivation and underfunded systems”. On the other hand, inclusive, transparent, equitable and effective development policies can be the most impactful tool for conflict prevention.
Last year, when I briefed this Council on capacity building for sustaining peace, I referred to the need to differentiate between external factors and internal factors of conflict. External factors refer to issues that, to a certain extent, are outside the control of a single state, such as external competition for natural resources, meaning geopolitical interests, and international terrorism. Internal factors are related to the interaction between the state and its citizens, most notably exclusion from public services. In order to put an end to conflict, both external and internal factors need to be addressed. In this regard, I noted how development policies are better poised to address internal factors, as inclusion can only be delivered through sustainable development.
However, the traditional response to peace and security challenges in Africa has not been to address the internal and external root causes of conflicts, but just their symptoms. In this regard, the only effective solution to conflicts in Africa is sustainable development, because only development will create the capacities that will allow African countries to tackle both the internal and external causes of conflict.
This is very clear not only on the Lusaka Master plan, but also in the African Union 2063 Agenda, which reflects our vision for a peaceful, united and prosperous continent.
Acknowledging that development policies impact peace and security implies identifying what are the development-related causes that lie behind a conflict, to enable the affected country to adopt the medium and long-term measures that will create a viable and sustainable pathway to peace.
Last year, when I briefed the Council, I presented one of these causes: the actual or perceived exclusion in the provision of public services.
Today, in line with the concept note of this debate, I would like to refer to the “political history” of the continent.
While most of the internal and external factors may have apparent current direct causes, their roots go back in history. Colonialism has often been blamed for the economic exploitation of the African continent, but its impact on the current governance shortcomings has seldom been discussed.
The 2022 report of the Secretary-General on the promotion of sustainable development and durable peace highlights that when African countries achieved independence, they inherited governance structures that were not designed to run successful independent states and consequently not prepared to deliver the independence vision.
From an economic perspective, as everybody knows, colonial administrations did not focus in promoting economic development, but rather in resource extraction and tax collection.
From the point of view of the rule of law, their objective was not to uphold the rights of the individuals, but to exercise authority. Even from the point of view of the land, the objective was not to ensure the presence of the state across the territory, but to control strategic sites either for their location or their economic value.
In addition, African States also inherited ruler-drawn borders that had been established not to organize a population, but to distribute the natural wealth of a continent.
As a result of these historical factors, from a governance perspective, African countries still face today three geographies that condition the relation between a country’s government, their territory and their people.
The first geography is the administrative territory of a country, that is determined by its borders. As the concept note for the debate points out, in Africa, these borders were the artificial result of negotiations among colonial powers that did not take into account the reality of the continent.
This takes us to the second geography, which reflects the pre-existing socio-cultural groups. The overlaps between the first and the second geography have led to a situation in which African countries have within their administrative borders two or more historic socio-cultural groups and situations in which one historic community is spread throughout two or more countries.
For example, in my region, West Africa, there is one group (the Fulani) that is present in every country between The Gambia and Cameroon.
This overlap has two main consequences on governance:
First, colonial administrations established centralized structures, which were afterwards inherited by the independent states. These structures were not prepared to manage a diverse population or to promote inclusion. As a result, many African countries have faced inter-communal conflicts that cannot be resolved from a governance perspective unless those structures are properly reformed.
Decentralization and devolution are key policy instruments that need to be part of the conflict resolution toolkit. They allow to recognize local realities within a state and to empower historic communities by providing them with assets.
Furthermore, they can help increase the efficiency of public services by bringing their management closer to the beneficiaries. Traditional leadership structures can also be effective tools to support the inclusion of historic communities. As such, they can add value to African governance structures.
The second consequence of this overlap is the existence of a socio-economic reality that transcends the boundaries of one country. From a peace and security perspective, transboundary movements are often perceived as a risk, and as such, there is a tendency to close the borders to attempt to control them, despite the fact that most of the time, these measures are not effective.
You cannot contain a historical reality that goes beyond the borders. Furthermore, attempts to limit the transboundary reality of Africa’s historical groups undermine their potential as a source of growth and resilience, and increase mistrust of state institutions.
Africa’s integration process is the only response to this challenge that will result in more growth, more development and more peace. Instead of responding to potential transboundary threats by closing borders, we need to accelerate integration, through the Continental Free Trade Area, the Regional Economic Communities and the different instruments in the African Union architecture.
The third geography represents the actual presence of the state. As the concept note points out, public investment and institutions in Africa have been concentrated in a few urban centres, leaving vast expanses of territory without State presence.
This is, again, the result of internal and external factors. As an external factor, the prevalence in international financial and development policies of a market-approach to public services that sought to shrink the size of public institutions since the 1990s, further weakened the inherited limited state structures. Simultaneously, from an internal perspective, African countries have not put enough focus on building solid country systems. As a consequence, up to day, state institutions are absent in many remote, rural and marginalized areas of the continent. This absence of the State, from a service-provision perspective, is one of the main factors that undermine the legitimacy of State institutions, break the bonds of trust with the population that are indispensable for nation-building, and create fertile ground for terrorism and the emergence of non-state actors.
If we want to reduce the threat represented by non-state actors taking over the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, military solutions need to be complemented by active development policies that contribute to ensuring an effective provision of public services across the territory. As long as development policies continue to be perceived as an aspect to be taken into account only after peace efforts have been undertaken, we will not achieve durable peace.
Conversely, if development aspects are factored-in during peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding processes, I am confident that we will be able to come here and congratulate African countries for their success in putting an end to conflict, as we are here today to congratulate Mozambique.
Mozambique’s peace process is an example of a smart and effective implementation of development policies to support a peace and security objective. The two-fold approach of the Maputo agreement, combining demilitarization and reintegration with decentralization and devolution responds to the understanding of the root-causes of the conflict and the identification of the development solutions that were needed to ensure the success of the process.
The recent decision by the government of Mozambique to include in the country’s pension system eligible demobilized DDR beneficiaries is another example of a smart policy both from a peace and a development perspective.
From the point of view of peace and security, it is yet another step in fighting exclusion and promoting reconciliation through development and social policies.
From a macroeconomic perspective, it is an effective way to promote income distribution, which is indispensable to achieve socio-economic resilience. And resilience is not only necessary to deliver peace, but also to advance in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and avoid a scenario in which African countries are pushed off-track. Economic growth without income distribution will only lead to greater inequalities, exclusion and conflict.
I would like, therefore, to congratulate you Mr President, for this courageous decision that I am confident will strengthen your country’s peace and reconciliation process.
Mr President, Excellencies,
Mozambique’s peace and reconciliation process evidences that development policies, when applied in complement to peacemaking efforts, contribute to ending hostilities and lay solid foundations for durable peace and sustainability. This effective combination of peace and development tools will enable African countries to silence the guns in the continent and achieve durable peace.
I thank you.
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