Building Sustainable Peace in Mali: a Grassroots Approach
Institutional Affiliation
University of Buea, Cameroon and African Leadership Centre, Nairobi, Kenya
Start Date
3-11-2023 9:30 AM
End Date
3-11-2023 11:00 AM
Proposal Type
Presentation
Proposal Format
Virtual
Proposal Description
Since 2012, Violence in Mali has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and represents a major challenge to global humanitarian and peacebuilding institutions. The root causes of the uprising are longstanding governance and security weaknesses coupled with mistrust and marginalization across regional, ethnic, and racial lines. The strong threat to international peace that could arise from a deterioration of the situation attracted a regional and international response to the crisis, led mainly by ECOWAS, France, African Union, United Nations and the G5 Sahel. The political commitment and the timely military response from ECOWAS and France in particular, can be said to have halted the progress of the separatists and terrorist agenda of MNLA, AQIM and other partner groups at the centre of the conflict. Along with the subsequent deployment of an African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA), its replacement by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the G5 Sahel, these efforts have however done little more than limiting armed violence. Using a qualitative research strategy, this paper shows that the limited results can be explained by an overreliance on elite negotiations and third party intervention with little done to solicit and implement grassroots solutions.
Building Sustainable Peace in Mali: a Grassroots Approach
Since 2012, Violence in Mali has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and represents a major challenge to global humanitarian and peacebuilding institutions. The root causes of the uprising are longstanding governance and security weaknesses coupled with mistrust and marginalization across regional, ethnic, and racial lines. The strong threat to international peace that could arise from a deterioration of the situation attracted a regional and international response to the crisis, led mainly by ECOWAS, France, African Union, United Nations and the G5 Sahel. The political commitment and the timely military response from ECOWAS and France in particular, can be said to have halted the progress of the separatists and terrorist agenda of MNLA, AQIM and other partner groups at the centre of the conflict. Along with the subsequent deployment of an African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA), its replacement by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the G5 Sahel, these efforts have however done little more than limiting armed violence. Using a qualitative research strategy, this paper shows that the limited results can be explained by an overreliance on elite negotiations and third party intervention with little done to solicit and implement grassroots solutions.