Canadian Consortium on Human Security

Introduction

The past two decades or so have witnessed some of the worse intrastate conflicts in some African states including Rwanda, Liberia Somalia Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Sudan. These intrastate conflicts have killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions across the African continent and abroad. The gravity of the human suffering and especially the linkage of these intrastate conflicts and its attendant human insecurity to global peace and security have led governments, academics, and some pundits of international security to call for the need to the protect non-combatants and improve human security on the African continent.

Canada is one of the states in the global arena which has demonstrated a strong commitment to - human security issues in its official policy. Canada has assumed a leading role in this field through policies such as the Ottawa treaty on the ban of antipersonnel landmines, the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine, the Kimberly process on conflict diamonds, and the International Criminal Court. These are particularly important in the African context and add to the development programmes undertaken by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to improve the socioeconomic situation on the African continent.

Similarly, African leaders have responded to the human security situation in Africa with the introduction of innovative institutions to address the challenges faced by Africans. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has been transformed into the African Union with a renewed emphasis on peace and security, especially human security. This renewed effort to pay attention to human security issues is also seen at the sub regional level in organisations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It is important to mention that African leaders have embraced this mindset. For instance, the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) which was introduced in 2001 by African leaders, and the Constitutive Act of the African Union, both recognise the interrelated nature of security and development and the need to place the individual at the center.

The field experiences

With funding from the Canadian Consortium on Human Security (CCHS), I spent the month of February at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC) in Accra, Ghana to conduct the second phase[2] of fieldwork for my PhD dissertation on Canadian policy towards the African Union’s Peace and Security Architecture (AUPSA) and the West Africa Peace and Security Initiative (WAPSI). The AUPSA and WAPSI were established by the African Union and Canada respectively to respond to the security deficit in the African continent. Both the AUPSA and WASPSI have - at least at the theoretical and operational level - been committed to improving human security on the African continent.

The KAIPTC also served as an institutional base from where I conducted interviews and other research activities with African-based think tanks and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in Accra. The fieldwork has given me the opportunity to continue the exploration of (a) the factors that influence Canadian policy towards AUPSA and WAPSI (b) the role that human security is playing in Canadian policy towards the AUPSA and WAPSI and (c) whether there is an African view of human security and whether this African[3] view influences Canadian policy.

I was attached to the Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution Department (CPMRD), which is the research department of KAIPTC. Canada is one of the main donors to the KAIPTC, and currently sponsors four courses on negotiations, policing, logistics, and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR). The KAIPTC is a well equipped peacekeeping training center with facilities arguably far better than what exists in universities and polytechnics in the West Africa sub-region and possibly in the rest of Africa. The availability of computers and internet are great resources for conducting research there. The center is also conducive to research due to the availability of officials with diverse expertise in peace and security issues. Moreover, the wide patronage in the training courses by government officials, members of civil society, NGOs, think tanks and academics from across Africa and beyond is an added advantage to conducting research at the center.

My fieldwork has been a great opportunity to interact with these policy agents and accordingly, I have solicited their views on Canadian policy towards AUPSA and WAPSI. More importantly, the people I interviewed demonstrated vast knowledge about the human security situation on the African continent and also how the concept itself has been deployed by Western powers including Canada.

Although some of the think tanks, NGOs and other officials I interviewed do not expressly focus on the study of Canadian foreign policy towards AUPSA and WAPSI, most of the interviewees demonstrated a clear knowledge of the way human security is shaping the policies of the Canadian government. For those who are not familiar with Canadian policy, I realised that this may be due to a complexity of factors which range from the lack of interest to study Canadian contributions on the African continent, or the overwhelming presence of the European Union, the United States, Japan and China in Africa as compared to the small power status of Canada in Africa. It is however important to mention that there is interest in the work that CIDA is doing in the area of promoting sustainable development on the African continent.

In the end what I find to be particularly important is that many of the interviewees I interacted with demonstrated a keen interest in the issues I am investigating. There also appears to be a renewed interest in Canadian policy in the area of human security. Although many agree that Canada is not a major player on the African continent, the image that Canada has built for itself as a human security crusader on the global stage is seen as an important step to improving the overall efforts toward putting the African people and their countries on the path of sustainable peace, security and development.

The Challenges

In spite of the successful completion of my field research at KAIPTC, it appeared from the onset that my work plan would be hard to implement because of the reality of the conditions in the field. This is due to several factors. In the first place, the short duration of the CCHS fellowship and the rigid deadlines to submit reports affected the number of officials I was able to access at the center. As an institution with high international standards, the KAIPTC has a calendar which outlines their courses and the expected participants. Most of the courses which were in session in February did not involve the officials I intended to interview. A longer period at the center would probably have allowed for greater opportunity to engage more policy agents from the regional, sub-regional, state and community levels.

Secondly, there was also great difficulty in getting appointments for interviews with either officials at the center or the few course participants (diplomats, government officials, NGO workers, members of civil society) who could be valuable sources of information. Most of the key officials at the center were running very intensive courses during the period of my fieldwork and this made it difficult to schedule appointments, although I was able to have very fruitful interviews with some of them. In addition, the officials from the African Union, ECOWAS and other government officials were too pressed for time to schedule interviews. I resorted to ad hoc meetings around coffee breaks and lunch times, where I tried to get as much information I could. Although most of the officials were willing to participate in my research I had to appreciate the tight schedules in which they were operating. In the end it has become necessary to supplement an already scheduled trip to Addis Ababa, with a visit to the ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria for another round of interviews.

Lastly, the annual report of KAIPTC which could be a valuable source of information is still in the draft stages and is due to be published soon. The report is very important since it enumerates the activities and courses at the center to which Canada is making a contribution. The Center has promised to forward a copy of the report to me by email.

In spite of these challenges, the willingness of the department heads, course directors, and facilitators to grant interviews when they were less busy compensated for the difficulty in getting interviews with officials, particularly from the AU and ECOWAS.

Recommendations for future researchers

Future researchers should plan their research trips by consulting the KAIPTC calendar, which shows the activities planned for the year. Specifically, the timing of the fieldwork should coincide with the calendar at KAIPTC if the intention is to interview a specific group of people. I have come to realise that the Kofi Annan center provides an excellent environment to conduct research. However, the intensive nature of the courses that are being run there means that one needs to be adaptable with interviews. My solution was to ask questions during break times, and supplement that with detailed notes written afterwards. The researcher should carefully select the most important questions to utilize the limited time one may have with a course participant. However, it is also possible to arrange for a longer meeting if the desired interviewees are residing at the center. In this case the evenings may work perfectly. I strongly recommend the KAIPTC for academics as well as professionals who would like to research peace and security issues in Africa.

[1] Edward Ansah Akuffo is a CCHS Human Security Fellow and a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science, University of Alberta.

[2] I have already completed the first phase of my fieldwork in Ottawa. The second phase of my fieldwork has two parts: the first is at the KAIPTC and the second in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the African Union headquarters is located. As the fieldwork progresses however, it is also becoming evident that I need to visit the headquarters of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria.

[3] I use “Africa” loosely to connote the views expressed by African think tanks, NGOs and government officials I had the opportunity to interview. As much as the views they have expressed may not be representative of Africa, it echoes most of the concerns of Africans working in the area of human security, conflict prevention, management and resolution. Interestingly, there is similarity in the views expressed and the discourses I encountered although there are also differences as to the approach needed to secure human security in violent and non-violent situations.