Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR)

Positive, ambiguous or negative? Peacekeeping in the local security fabric

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How effective are outside efforts to bring security to African countries, particularly through the use of peacekeeping troops? This study from the German Institute of Global and Area Studies argues that a realistic assessment must include local perspectives on peacekeepers and their relations to other (state and non-state) actors in the security arena. Peacekeepers do harm, just as they do good; and they would profit from a more systematic evaluation of the local perception of their actions.

Of the 18 African countries that have experienced peacekeeping operations, 12 have had operations lasting more than a few months and can be considered places where the peacekeepers had a prominent role in security provision. Although a majority of peacekeeping troops deployed in Africa’s crises are from Asia or Africa, their mission is conceived somewhere else, most of the time in the UN’s headquarters in New York, in Brussels or in Paris. This impacts on the way security is conceptualised. The remote threat to domestic security plays a role; a youth rebellion in Africa may be seen as the breeding ground of terrorism. Such thinking may conceal what is at stake locally.

One major problem is the transposition of the outsiders’ own institutional setup to the crisis area. The conceptualisation of an outside intervention in supposedly failed or weak states is usually guided by a clear State bias.

• The State is considered by most Western decision-makers as the only possible partner when it comes to security concerns, despite the fact that in many places the State is the cause of insecurity.
• Security sector reform is seen as important and is limited to the state organs. This is problematic as some of the most efficient self-help mechanisms receive only scant attention.
• Non-state armed groups are identified as important players but usually they are seen as ‘spoilers’ of peace processes despite the fact that some may be important positive forces.
• Not all the actions of international peacekeepers provide more security to everyone or are regarded as impartial.
• Other outside security providers may also be at work: security advisers to the president; private military companies of foreign origin; and troops from neighbouring states or from the former colonial power.

The outcome of peacekeeping missions can be quite ambiguous. Unless they pay more attention to the local context and local perceptions, outsiders may unwittingly destroy more than they can build up.

• With the current limitations of state security forces it would be unwise to dismantle self-help mechanisms on a local level; instead it would be better to promote them.
• It is important to think beyond state structures to get the picture of the security output of peacekeepers right and to find appropriate local cooperation partners in the field of security.
• Strategies should address the local roots of hostility, the local capacities for change and the specific degree of international commitment available to assist sustainable peace.
• The forced introduction and maintenance of a monopoly on the use of force might have less chance of bringing about security than the optimisation of oligopolies of violence.
• Local partners should be chosen on the basis of efficiency and local legitimacy.

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