SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL | APN LECTURE SERIES

“AFRICAN SOLUTIONS FOR AFRICAN PROBLEMS”:

WHERE IS THE RESEARCH?
HENRIETTA MENSA-BONSU

AFRICAN PEACEBUILDING NETWORK

APN LECTURE SERIES: NO. 1
 ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Launched in March 2012, the African Peacebuilding Network

(APN) supports independent African research on c­ onflict-affected
countries and neighboring regions of the continent, as well as the
integration of high-quality African research-based knowledge into
global policy communities. In order to advance African ­debates on
peacebuilding and promote African perspectives, the APN offers
competitive research grants and fellowships, and it funds other
forms of targeted support, including strategy m
­ eetings, ­seminars,
grantee workshops, commissioned studies, and the publication
and dissemination of research findings. In doing so, the APN
also promotes the visibility of African peacebuilding knowledge
among global and regional centers of scholarly analysis and
practical ­action and makes it accessible to key policymakers at
the United Nations and other multilateral, regional, and national
­policymaking institutions.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The APN Lecture series provides an avenue for influential think-

ers, practitioners, policy makers, and activists to reflect on and
speak to the critical issues and challenges facing African peace-
building. This publication series documents lectures given on the
platform of the African Peacebuilding Network (APN) program,
and its institutional partners. These lectures provide an analy-
sis of processes, institutions, and mechanisms for, as well as the
politics of peacebuilding on the continent, and contribute towards
broadening debates and knowledge about the trajectories of con-
flict and peace in conflict-affected African countries and regions.
The APN Lecture series seeks to address knowledge gaps in Af-
rican peace and security, including its links to local, national, and
global structures and processes. These publications also provide
critical overviews and innovative reflections on the state of the
field, including new thinking critical to knowledge production and
dissemination in overlooked or emerging areas of African peace-
building.
“AFRICAN SOLUTIONS FOR AFRICAN
PROBLEMS”: WHERE IS THE RESEARCH?

HENRIETTA MENSA-BONSU
LEGON CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND DIPLOMACY (LECIAD),
UNIVERSITY OF GHANA

KEYNOTE ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE AFRICAN PEACEBUILDING

NETWORK (APN) GRANTEE TRAINING WORKSHOP, LECIAD, UNIVERSITY
OF GHANA, ACCRA, JUNE 27, 2016

MAY 2018

INTRODUCTION

The nature of the conflicts the world has to contend with is changing, creating
a need to adopt new analyses and approaches to conflict management,
resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction. These changes do affect not
only Africa but also the entire global community. Shifting away from wars
fought by armies facing each other on battlegrounds, conflict today is
characterized by asymmetric warfare that is not and cannot be fought the
same way as traditional wars were fought in the past. In recent years, in
addition to current intra-state conflicts, the world has seen an upsurge in
violent extremism and terrorism, linked to the resurgence of fundamentalist
Islam, with its reinterpretation of religious duty, and the rise of Islamist
movements and their response to the age-old Middle Eastern Question.
As if things were not bad enough, these developments have coincided with
the exponential growth of new communications technologies accessible
in every part of the globe. These mass communication technologies have
enabled disaffected persons all over the world to mobilize support for their
causes or, alternatively, to join up with causes they support. They are also

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now able to recruit any number of people to adopt their ideas and execute
extremist projects inspired by those ideas. Thus, the Islamization of political
grievances has not only increased the intensity of existing conflicts but,
with the aid of communications technology, has increased the speed of
recruitment, fueling the "Them vs. Us" mentality, as opposing parties to
a conflict. These emerging issues require fresh and sustained thinking in
order to find and develop credible responses.

On the peacebuilding front, efforts to assist countries emerging from conflict

to build peace in order to pursue development have largely not yielded
the desired results. I maintain that “peace is to a nation what oxygen is to
the human being.” Without peace, there is no scope for assuring anything
other than physical security for the populace. Funds that would otherwise
have been used to provide necessary amenities to improve the lives of the
people must be diverted to support security personnel needed to maintain a
modicum of peace, and energies needed to tackle development issues must
be invested in efforts to make or find peace, leaving room for nothing else.
Peace is thus a necessary condition for development, and peacebuilding a
critical activity to secure that needed space for development. Conversely, it
has also been demonstrated that sustainable and equitable development
in a country is a necessary condition for durable peace. There is thus a
symbiotic relationship between peace and development: it is only when there
is peace that the creative energies of the people are released for accelerated
development, and it is only when there is ordered development characterized
by an equitable distribution of national goods that societal peace may be
best assured. The relationship between peace and development has been
too well established for further debate.

“African solutions for African problems” has lately been the boast of the
continent since it found its voice and some muscle to attempt to confront its
problems. However, implicit in this slogan is the notion that some problems
are African problems which must be left to Africans to solve. Whatever the
reality of the situation, solutions must be generated on the continent, for,
should Africans import solutions to African problems, then the solutions
would be no more African than if they had been imported by non-Africans.
Therefore, the slogan risks being an empty boast without research
generated from the continent in response to continental realities. The
challenges facing Africa are many and complex. From issues of governance
to socioeconomic development, to the development of peaceful and cohesive
societies, there are many unanswered questions. For instance, over the last

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twenty years, many countries have opted for a system of governance based
on principles of liberal democracy, believing that such a system would lead
to the stability and prosperity that the continent desperately needs. Why
are they not achieving the expected results and progress in governance and
development? Do we know what the real issues are, and what action might
best serve to address them?

I propose to examine some of these issues in order to demonstrate the

critical need for homegrown research to contribute toward the resolution of
some of the difficulties currently confronting Africa and the world.

THE CHANGING TERRAIN OF CONFLICT

Unlike the wars of old where objectives were known, the parties determinate,
the fighters participating as part of a fighting machine, rules guiding
armed conduct understood and accepted by the parties to a conflict—the
new conflicts are vastly different. Now, the objectives are more diffuse,
the parties often indeterminate, the fighters each driven by personal or
collective grievance or motivations, and it is an all-out war with no barriers
or forbidden targets. This challenge to conventional strategies and tactics
has also meant that non-conventional participants in war have been drawn
in as the new modes of warfare appear to have no barriers or rules. The
changing nature of war has thus succeeded in blurring the distinctions
between civilian and military, combatant and non-combatant, victim and
perpetrator, all of which categories have implications under humanitarian
and human rights law. The September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attacks in
the United States of America were aimed primarily at the United States,
but the chosen target was known to house global representation of people
and interests. Additionally, the use of airplanes, which have become the key
means of transportation in a globalized world, was by no means accidental.
In one fell swoop, the leadership of al Qaeda, which planned and executed
those attacks, “globalized” the conflict in what amounted to a hostile
confrontation with the whole world. Their action thus transcended attacks
on one world power, by taking on the symbols of globalization.

This thinking appears to be the basis for later attacks on trains and train
stations in the UK and Belgium, hotels and entertainment venues in
France, Mali, Burkina Faso, the U.S., and Côte d’Ivoire, and now a Russian
airplane and an international airport in Belgium. All of these clearly show
an expansion of the notion of "Them vs. Us" that underlies every conflict,

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with the “democratization” of communication technology being no less

culpable. Thus, persons with extremist views as well as terror groups
have successfully recruited others who, but for information technologies,
would otherwise have been completely out of their reach and scope. Using
a number of mechanisms, such as “franchising,” “radicalized lone wolf
operatives,” and copy-cat operations, they have made the determination
of who qualifies as an “enemy combatant” a difficult task. This situation
has been made worse by the easy availability of online information on how
to make bombs and other IEDs, transforming otherwise law-abiding and
unarmed people into lethally-armed warriors. From the indiscriminate use
of heavy weapons to “human bombs” deliberately detonated in crowded
areas to cause maximum casualties, these groups have demonstrated that
they will go to any length to press their point. Although this particular conflict
was initially presented and characterized as a clash between Islamic and
secular western civilizations, it has become clear that such characterization
could not be entirely accurate on account of the large number of Muslim co-
religionists who have been targeted, attacked, and massacred as part of
these groups’ modus operandi. All of these developments have changed the
dynamics of conflict for the international community and truly globalized
the contest for hearts and minds, leaving the world baffled as to what to
do next. In the midst of all this confusion, there is the loud sloganeering
of “African solutions for African problems.” What and where are the ideas
with which Africa intends to confront these manifestations of conflict on the
continent? The need for research into causes and effects, as well as the
modes of response and the efficacy of existing tools in the management of
the conflicts of today, is almost self-evident.

While the international community is wrestling with these challenges, some

of the groups involved in acts of violent extremism and terrorism, such as
ISIL, Boko Haram, and al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), claim to be fighting
to create caliphates and establish Islamic forms of government, with no
regard for existing national boundaries. Indeed, they desire to displace them
all—a posture in complete contradiction to the post-Westphalian State and
international law as currently practiced. Again, their goals are maximalist
and do not admit of moderation, dialogue, or negotiation. Thus, just as the
unanticipated eruption of intra-state wars in the immediate post-cold war
period challenged the instruments that the international community had
designed for dealing with conflict between and among its member states,
so too are these emerging forms of conflict challenging the available tools.
Mechanisms for exacting compliance and for sanctioning leaders by means

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of travel bans and other disciplinary measures have been used in the past in
hopes of achieving desired outcomes when such leaders have contravened
norms of the community. Not so with these new protagonists of intra-state
wars—non-state actors, who sometimes are even unaware of the legal
regime of humanitarian law and of human rights, who have no need to
travel or deal with the outside world (which makes travel bans ineffective
as sanctions), and who have no external economic interests that could be
blocked in order to force compliance with the standards and demands of
the international community. Any African solutions would definitely make
a contribution toward improving the efficacy of measures that could be
employed to bring these aggressors to heel.

As if those were not enough complications to worry about, Africa’s response

to peace and security challenges based upon notions that there should be
African solutions for African problems has come under pressure. The African
Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is a response to the nature and
manifestation of the threats of yesterday. Its Panel of the Wise and Friends
of the Panel are ready to mediate and negotiate with parties in conflict, but
these new protagonists are not interested in such negotiation because first,
they are not ready to emerge from the shadows, and second, they are in an
all-or-nothing contest. On the military front, one of APSA’s central pillars,
the African Standby Force (ASF), is a continental military arrangement
organized around the five regional groupings in Africa: North, South, East,
West, and Central. This has caused its existing economic communities
and other regional bodies or mechanisms (RECs/RMs)—NARC, ECOWAS,
ECCAS, EASF, and SADC—to undergo fundamental mission shifts in order
to support this military action under the so-called principle of subsidiarity.
However, while the ASF is still being formed and only now becoming
operational, the terrorist group Boko Haram has emerged with operations
across four countries—Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon—two of which
are in the West African community of ECOWAS and the other two in the
Central African community of ECCAS. This has presented an immediate
challenge to the design of the ASF, thus undermining the efficacy of existing
arrangements and blunting the edge of the newly-designed instruments.
This reality has necessitated the development of a new mechanism—the
Lake Chad Basin Commission—of which all four affected countries are
members. However, the task of fashioning new structures out of strictly
civilian ones for the management of the resources of Lake Chad in order
to offer a military response has been complicated by issues of hegemonic
politics and other considerations. All of these developments have created

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new security challenges for governments and their security apparatuses,

as well as challenges to the tools that had been fashioned to deal with the
continent’s existing challenges.

Yet another tactic of ISIL and Boko Haram on the one hand and al Qaeda
and al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) on the other is the effort to join forces
to perpetrate outrages. Thus, Boko Haram has sworn loyalty to and been
accepted, by ISIL, while AQIM is clearly a branch (or franchise) of al Qaeda.
This has not only increased the reach of these groups, along with their
access to heavy weaponry, but it has also placed West Africa at the center of
possible turf wars between the two groups, for they are known to be bitter
rivals regardless of their lip service to cooperation. A realistic appreciation
of these challenges would suggest that new thinking is required since
the “enemy” for these terrorist organizations is not a determinate entity
restricted to the theatre of war, but rather everyone whose death would
produce terror and headlines in the news media. The world has now been
set on its head, as with baffled exclamations it struggles to combat the new
threats with its outdated weapons and responses. What can we do? What
must we do? Clearly, new and fresh thinking is required, and this is where
academic thinkers and theorists could make a difference.

In 2014, the appointment of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace

Operations (HIPPO) coincided with the appointment of two other panels
by the General Assembly to review the implementation of Security Council
Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and to advise it on its
peacebuilding agenda. These three reviews operated concurrently and so
were able to profit from synergies of combined consultations. Indeed, the
Chair and one other member of the 1325 Panel were full-fledged members
of the HIPPO as well, and this made for easy and meaningful linkages.
Beginning its work in November 2014, and completing its report titled
Politics, People and Partnership in June 2015, the HIPPO engaged in extensive
consultations with all the major stakeholders in an attempt to rebuild the
lost consensus on peacekeeping while also reaffirming the role of the UN in
managing threats to international peace and security.

UN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE AFRICAN UNION

The framers of the Charter of the UN, in entrusting world peace and
security to the Security Council, also had the prescience to prescribe a role
for regional bodies and other organizations committed to the same ideals

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as the UN and so made provision for such participation in Chapter VIII of the
Charter. The African Union (AU), which had set out to attempt to solve its own
problems on account of the general feeling that the Security Council was
slow to act when African lives were at risk, soon realized that taking on the
task of protecting African peace and security was a much more expensive
endeavor than the AU could support on its own. Taking a new tack, the AU
has now revised its stance on “African solutions for African problems” by
adopting a different approach; although it expects to be in the lead when
issues arise on the continent, the UN has a responsibility toward its African
Member States, and therefore it must retain its primacy as entrusted to it
under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. The AU has thus fashioned its approach
as a manifestation of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter so that whenever it
should decide to act, it would do so as a partner of the UN. This partnership
has now been fully recognized under the HIPPO report, and its operational
details are being worked out.

The HIPPO Report has recommended that the UN-AU partnership must
be underpinned by a baseline of principles, which include “consultative
decision making and common strategy; division of labor based on respective
comparative advantage; joint analysis, planning, monitoring, and evaluation;
integrated response to the conflict cycle, including prevention and
transparency, accountability and respect for international standards.”¹ This
translates to the UN’s reliance on the AU and other partners as “coalitions
of the willing,” when it is unable to perform required tasks involving peace
enforcement or counter-insurgency. In such situations, the partnership
framework prescribes that the UN must provide assistance and support to
the AU to enable it to undertake the task. All of this means that the voices of
African scholars must be heard in the various spheres of peace and security
on the continent so as to help shape the discourses of the future.

PEACEBUILDING

Peacebuilding is a necessary component of the peace agenda underlying

any intervention by the international community. Defined variously as
"international support to national efforts to establish, redevelop and
reform institutions for the effective administration of countries emerging
from conflict;” “action to identify and support structures which will tend to
strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid relapse into conflict;” and
“a multifaceted concept that includes the process of building or rebuilding
the political, security, socio-economic and transitional justice dimensions

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of societies emerging from conflict;” these many definitions all refer to

assistance from the international community to support post-conflict
reconstruction.²

The inclusion of peacebuilding in the peace support agenda is motivated by

the desire of the international community to support societies in crisis to help
them achieve durable peace and prevent a lapse or relapse into conflict. The
aim of these efforts is to address the root causes of the conflict, to strengthen
state institutions in the performance of their functions, to deliver justice
and respect for human rights, and to support socio-economic wellbeing,
including the means of making a livelihood. The notion of peacebuilding has
become associated with post-conflict activity consequent upon the definition
accorded it in the Brahimi Report, which defined it as “activities undertaken
on the far side of conflict to reassemble the foundations of peace and
provide the tools for building on those foundations, something that is more
than just the absence of war.”³ The placement of peacebuilding as a post-
conflict activity has, however, undergone a shift. Under the HIPPO and AGE
Reports, peacebuilding is now recognized as a legitimate activity to prevent
a lapse into conflict, thus making it part of the package of activities aimed at
preventing conflict in the first place. Again, the current mantra is “sustaining
peace” and no longer just “peacebuilding.” The notion of “sustaining peace”
is conceptualized as “encompassing not only efforts to prevent relapse into
conflict, but also to prevent a lapse into conflict in the first place."4 Clearly,
then, peacebuilding is not sequential to peacemaking only, but present
throughout the conflict cycle, and as conflicts are not linear, so peacebuilding
cannot be tied to a particular phase. Currently, with emphasis on sustaining
peace, peacebuilding refers not only to post-conflict activities as it was
represented under the Brahimi Report but also to prevention activities. It
is acknowledged that when undertaken appropriately with good programs
and activities, peacebuilding holds real promise for reconstruction, either
post-conflict or as a conflict-prevention measure, as it enables the widest
cohort of the citizenry to appreciate the value of peace while securing their
commitment to sustain the peace. Yet again, this is where relevant research
could make a difference, for engaging in peacebuilding as conflict prevention
has the potential to upset host governments and be seen as interference in
the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

Despite the goodwill and good intentions underlying the support extended
to post-conflict countries, the world has gradually come to the realization
that the record of successful post-conflict peacebuilding is dismal, as

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countries that have received such assistance often relapse into conflict when
the international community departs. Under pressure from growing UN
peacekeeping budgets, now almost $9 billion, as well as other expenditures
on conflict-related activities, attention has turned to how to create more
peaceful societies so as to prevent an original lapse into conflict, or how to
make peacebuilding more enduring so as to minimize the danger of relapse
into conflict once foreign intervention in a post-conflict situation has abated.
The move to redefine the goal of efforts to assist post-conflict societies
as one not just of building peace, but of building sustainable peace, has
led to “sustaining peace” becoming the preferred expression rather than
“peacebuilding.”

The HIPPO Report also recommended that the one-size-fits-all approach

to peace operations and peacebuilding should be jettisoned in favor of
situation-specific responses and approaches. In fact, the one-size-fits-all
approach to peacebuilding has itself been blamed for conflict relapse in
some post-conflict countries. While it can be agreed that not all contexts
require the same arrangements, there has as yet been little thought as
to context specificity after peace agreements have been signed and the
international community has moved in. Again, not all the same activities
are required in all post-conflict countries, nor even when required, are they
needed in the same order. For instance, it is the norm for peace agreements
to contain clauses requiring elections within twelve months. However,
experience has shown that not all elections hurriedly organized achieve or
confer legitimacy on the ruling government, and not all national budgets
can support institutions of a certain size, and yet countries variously
situated are fed the same medicine. The group of post-conflict countries in
a state of fragility, known as g7+, is doing its bit to sensitize the world about
their real needs and how they feel about the assistance extended to them,
but these ideas are not backed either by hard evidence or by independent
scholarly research. It is clear that there is still a lot that is neither known nor
properly understood about the societies that have been on the receiving end
of peacebuilding initiatives. What can African academics and researchers
contribute so that the one-size-fits-all approach can be safely abandoned?

It has also been recommended by both the HIPPO and the AGE Reports that
there must be strong engagement with civil society if national ownership
is to be assured. Civil society plays critical roles in various aspects of
reconstruction and building sustainable peace. From enabling peace
agreements to assuring the involvement of women and youth, to assisting in

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the promotion of a culture of peace by implementing grassroots programs,

to support for activities aimed at promoting good governance, there is no
substitute for civil society engagement. Active civil society, represented by civil
society organizations (CSOs), can play critical roles in ensuring sustainable
peace. It is well known that CSOs can be a major resource for translating
peace processes to the grassroots in broken communities, assuring the
utilization of local knowledge, mobilizing communities to improve their own
circumstances, and building bridges of understanding. For what other ends
may their participation be tapped in support of sustaining peace? How may
the resources of their diasporas be accessed to support the peace instead
of being left to fuel renewed conflict? Certainly, only field research could
provide the necessary answers to these and other questions. Again, how
may development agencies and international financial institutions (IFIs) be
persuaded to support peacebuilding efforts in particular contexts in order
to maximize the peace dividend? All of these issues need to be researched
to stop us from groping in the dark for answers.

Host countries tend to be critical of the international community and the

lack of transparency regarding the spending of allocated funds. Recipients
of development assistance have a valid expectation that funding support
publicly announced is going directly to fund local programs. However,
sometimes inordinate amounts are expended on “international experts,”
leaving very little for programmatic activity. Surely the existence of local
experts, or at least African experts, who understand the context would yield
more dividends than the current dearth of African presence in the higher
echelons of multilateral organizations. If Africa is to step up to the plate,
then it is going to need its own locally-generated research and expertise.

CONCLUSION

In this piece, I have tried to show that the slogan “African Solutions to
African problems” will remain hollow unless African researchers step up
to the plate and produce relevant research to ground proffered solutions in
local realities. Although Africa is one continent, realities in the West may not
necessarily mirror realities in the East, and therefore research grounded in
local realities would surely be more beneficial than solutions that have been
imported from other parts of the world.

I have also tried to show the very many ways in which sound research from
Africa could contribute to the discourse in the international community for

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the benefit of all. From assisting in the creation of an understanding of the

new imperatives determined by the changing nature of conflict and threats
to international peace, to the enterprise of building sustainable peace in
troubled communities, evidence-based research is necessary, yet lacking.
New ideas are required to tackle new manifestations of old problems, and
the need to allow communities that receive international assistance to
derive maximum benefit from the investment continues to be paramount.
Research, particularly field-based research, is critical, and so funding
agencies such as the SSRC through the APN make invaluable contributions
when they enable such research to be undertaken by Africa's brightest and
best.

I am not in doubt that the topics lined up for you, the grantees, will equip you
to better position yourselves in the battle to rescue Africa from too much
experimentation by foreign interests. In the end, Africa would be better off
if initiatives adopted to assist Africans could be generated from research by
African scholars so that there would, indeed, be African solutions to African
problems.

Thank you.

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NOTES

1. United Nations, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace – Politics, Partnerships, and People:
Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations,
A/70/95 S/2015/446 (June 2015), available at: http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/
view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2015/446.

2. Security Council resolution 1645, Operationalizing the Peacebuilding Commission,

S/RES/1645 (December 20, 2005), available at: https://www.un.org/en/ga/search/
view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1645(2005); Security Council resolution 2086, On
Highlighting the Role of Multidimensional Peacekeeping Missions, S/RES/2086 (January
23, 2013), available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/511b8fef2.html; UN General
Assembly, An Agenda for Peace: resolution/adopted by the General Assembly, October
8, 1993, A/RES/47/120B, available at: http://www.un-documents.net/a47-277.htm;
Chris Saunders and Dawn Nagar, Security and Development in Southern Africa, Centre
for Conflict Resolution, 2008, available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep05164.

3. UN General Assembly, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations

("Brahimi Report"), August 21, 2000, A/55/305S/2000/809, available at: https://
undocs.org/A/55/305.

4. United Nations, The Challenge of sustaining peace: Report of the Advisory Group of
Experts on the Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture, June 30, 2015: para.6 and 7,
available at: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/968.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

United Nations. Uniting Our Strengths for Peace – Politics, Partnerships, and
People: Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations
Peace Operations, A/70/95 S/2015/446 (June 2015). Available at: http://
www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2015/446.

Security Council resolution 1645, Operationalizing the Peacebuilding

Commission, S/RES/1645 (December 20, 2005). Available at: https://
www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1645(2005).

Security Council resolution 2086. On Highlighting the Role of Multidimensional

Peacekeeping Missions, S/RES/2086 (January 23, 2013). Available at:
http://www.refworld.org/docid/511b8fef2.html.

UN General Assembly. An Agenda for Peace: resolution/adopted by the General

Assembly. October 8, 1993, A/RES/47/120B. Available at: http://www.
un-documents.net/a47-277.htm.

Saunders, Chris, and Dawn Nagar. Security and Development in Southern

Africa. Centre for Conflict Resolution, 2008. Available at: http://www.
jstor.org/stable/resrep05164.

UN General Assembly. Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations

("Brahimi Report"), August 21, 2000, A/55/305S/2000/809. Available
at: https://undocs.org/A/55/305.

United Nations. The Challenge of sustaining peace: Report of the Advisory

Group of Experts on the Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture, June
30, 2015: para.6 and 7. Available at: http://www.un.org/ga/search/
view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/968.

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SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL | APN LECTURE SERIES MENSA-BONSU | WHERE IS THE RESEARCH?

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu is the director of the Legon Centre

for International Affairs and Diplomacy and professor of Law
at the University of Ghana School of Law. She is a fellow of the
Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prof. Mensa-Bonsu has
researched and published extensively on criminal law and justice,
family law, and children’s rights. Currently, she teaches Criminal
Law, Jurisprudence, and Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice
at the University of Ghana School of Law and serves as a civilian
mentor to both the ECOWAS and UN Senior Mission Leaders
Courses. Prof. Mensa-Bonsu has served in a number of high-
level national and international capacities, including on Ghana’s
National Reconciliation Commission, the Ghana Police Council,
and currently the National Governing Council of the African Peer
Review Mechanism. In 2015, she served on the UN Secretary-
General’s High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations,
the current blueprint for UN peace operations around the world.