On Thursday, May 19th, IPI together with the Centre for Conflict Resolution of Cape Town, South Africa, cohosted the launch of a new book entitled Thabo Mbeki: The Rise and Fall of Africa’s Philosopher-King edited by Adekeye Adebajo.
Thabo Mbeki is considered by many as the most important African political figure of his generation and has been a dominant figure in South African politics for 14 years. A pan-African philosopher-king who spent two decades in exile, Mr. Mbeki, as president of Africa’s most industrialized state, set out a sweeping vision of an African Renaissance. As a liberation leader in exile, he was instrumental in his party’s anti-apartheid struggle. During the South African transition, he helped build one of the world’s most respected constitutional democracies. As president, despite some successes, he was unable to overcome South Africa’s inherited socioeconomic challenges, and his disastrous AIDS policies will remain a major blot on his legacy. He will, however, be remembered more as a foreign policy president for his efforts in peacemaking in Africa and in building continental institutions such as the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). This book seeks to rescue him from South African parochialism and restore him to the pan-African pantheon.
Speaker:
Dr. Adekeye Adebajo, Executive Director, Centre for Conflict Resolution, Cape Town
Discussant:
Ambassador Princeton N. Lyman, Senior Adviser, United States Institute of Peace (USIP)
Moderator:
Ambassador John Hirsch, Senior Adviser, International Peace Institute
On Thursday, May 19th, IPI hosted a Humanitarian Affairs Series event featuring Ms. Clementine Awu Nkweta-Salami, UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Representative in Ethiopia, who focused primarily on the refugee crisis faced by the county within the context of contemporary forced displacement trends in the Horn of Africa.
Ethiopia currently hosts the largest number of refugees on the African continent, including refugees from Somalia, South Sudan, and Eritrea. The large-scale influx of refugees adds to an already multifaceted humanitarian crisis affecting host communities in Ethiopia. Moreover, it presents a number of challenges pertaining to mixed migration flows.
The event aims to raise awareness of the multiple and heightened challenges faced by UNHCR and its partners in supporting the host country in delivering lifesaving assistance to refugees and building their resilience.
Speaker:
Ms. Clementine Awu Nkweta-Salami, UNHCR’s Representative in Ethiopia
Moderator:
Dr. Els Debuf, Senior Adviser for Humanitarian Affairs at IPI
The past year has seen significant progress in Mali, with the signing of a peace agreement in June 2015 and the ensuing decrease in violence between the signatory parties. These achievements have allowed the UN to shift from prioritizing cease-fire monitoring to focusing its efforts on the implementation of the peace agreement. In the wake of this shift in context, the mandate of the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is expected to be renewed in June 2016.
In light of the challenges faced by MINUSMA and the expected renewal of its mandate, the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Stimson Center, and Security Council Report co-organized a workshop on April 21, 2016, to give member states and UN actors the opportunity to develop a shared understanding of the situation faced by the UN in Mali. This workshop was the first in a series analyzing how UN policies and the June 2015 recommendations of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) can be applied to country-specific contexts.
Participants agreed that MINUSMA must first and foremost continue to assist with the implementation of the peace agreement, while also ensuring that the population enjoys peace dividends. It was suggested that the mission’s political strategy focus on pursuing a more inclusive approach, building trust between the parties to the conflict, addressing spoilers and asymmetric threats, balancing between a political and a military approach, developing partnerships, enhancing capabilities, and identifying a completion strategy.
In addition, participants emphasized the importance of prioritization and sequencing to ensure that mandates are realistic and achievable. In the face of existing limitations, it was suggested that MINUSMA could achieve progress in linking the peace agreement’s security and political dimensions, supporting stabilization in the north, prioritizing DDR as part of a long-term strategy, clarifying the protection of civilians mandate, and coming to a joint understanding of what the return of state authority means.
Le dix-septième Forum international sur le continent africain (Fica) de l'Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN) en partenariat avec le ministère des Affaires étrangères et ...
The resolution of the Syrian conflict and the European Union ...
Diffuser des connaissances, former à l’esprit de défense, sensibiliser aux questions internationales est le cœur de métier de l'IHEDN.
Ces sujets touchent tous les citoyens, acteurs du secteur public comme du secteur privé, appartenant à la sphère militaire comme à la sphère civile. L’Institut, à travers ses différentes actions de formation, est donc au cœur de la construction de la résilience et fonde son projet pédagogique sur une approche globale de ces problématiques et l’instauration d’un débat fécond et ouvert.
Les entreprises qui partagent nos valeurs et nos objectifs peuvent nous rejoindre et devenir nos partenaires, que ce soit par le parrainage d’événements ou d’activités ponctuelles, ou encore par un engagement plus substantiel dans la durée.
Pour ce faire, elles peuvent soutenir l’Institut par le mécénat, au travers du Fonds de dotation de l’IHEDN.
Créé en 2010, le Fonds de dotation de l’IHEDN a pour objectif de porter pour l’Institut le développement de nouveaux axes d’action :
On Tuesday, May 17th, IPI together with the World Peace Foundation cohosted a policy forum event to discuss how lessons from the past can help us better engage current threats of mass atrocities.
The policies that have developed since the 1990s within the “international community” to respond to threats of mass atrocities—defined as widespread and systematic violence against civilians—were primarily crafted in response to the question: What can we do to help prevent, mediate, or halt mass violence? This panel begins from a different perspective, asking instead: How have past episodes of mass violence actually ended? Posing this question in the context of past cases, panelists discussed patterns of who has had the authority and capacity to have an impact on ending mass violence and under what conditions. Bringing the discussion into the present, the panel further addressed how lessons from the past can help us better engage threats of mass atrocities today.
Speakers:
Dr. Alex de Waal, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation and Tufts University
Dr. Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Research Director, World Peace Foundation, and Assistant Professor, Tufts University
Professor Noel Twagiramunga, Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts—Lowell
Mr. Ben Majekodunmi, Senior Officer, United Nations Executive Office of the Secretary-General
Moderator:
Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President, International Peace Institute
On Tuesday, May 17th, IPI hosted a Global Leader Series presentation featuring Ambassador Lamberto Zannier, Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Ambassador Zannier addressed a number of security challenges in Europe—including countering violent extremism, curbing organized crime, and managing migration—from the perspective of the OSCE. He also discussed how the OSCE can improve its ability to promote inclusive dialogue among its fifty-seven member states in order to build trust and confidence, both of which are essential to a cooperative approach to security.
The OSCE region is facing a growing number of intricate security challenges—from the crisis in Ukraine to the politico-military dispute in Nagorno-Karabakh—requiring innovative and collaborative approaches at the multilateral level. In addition, the unprecedented rise in migration resulting from the Syrian crisis has destabilized national societies and exacerbated regional tensions, calling attention to the need for a more coordinated approach to border management disputes, human trafficking, and conflict prevention.
Acting under the guidance of the Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Zannier heads the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna, addressing a wide range of security-related issues in the OSCE region, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counterterrorism, and economic and environmental activities.
The event was moderated by IPI Senior Adviser for External Relations Warren Hoge.