Conflict in Africa, as everywhere, is caused by human action, and can be ended by human action. This is the reality that shames us for every conflict that we allow to persist, and emboldens us to believe that we can address and resolve every conflict that we choose to confront.

For the United Nations there is no higher goal, no deeper commitment and no greater ambition than preventing armed conflict so that people everywhere can enjoy peace and prosperity. In Africa, as elsewhere, the United Nations increasingly is being required to respond to intra-State instability and conflict. In those conflicts, the main aim, to an alarming degree, is the destruction not of armies but of civilians and entire ethnic groups.

Preventing such wars is no longer a question of defending States or protecting allies. It is a question of defending humanity itself.

Despite periodic alarmist headlines, Africans are increasingly taking responsibility for maintaining peace and security on the continent. This trend will likely continue over the next decade, as evidenced by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) action in Liberia and Sierra Leone, African peacekeepers in Central Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Lesotho, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)--previously known as the Intergovernmental Agency on Drought and Development--mediation in Sudan, and Acord de Non-Aggresion de'Assistance (ANAD) disarmament and weapons non-proliferation efforts in the Sahara-Sahel region. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) representing women and human rights groups, among others, are also active in peace processes and conflict resolution activities. Problems remain in Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, the People's Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. Sudan, Algeria, and Somalia are still in turmoil, and Nigeria could deteriorate into serious communal violence with regional consequences. The trend away from military rule certainly is not yet secure.

Africa is not at peace. More than 30 wars have been fought in Africa since 1970, and most of these have been internal rather than inter-state wars. In 1996 alone, 14 of the 53 countries of Africa were involved in armed conflicts, and they resulted in more than 8 million refugees and displaced persons. And this is before the recent eruption of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which has now involved many of the states in the Great Lakes region and beyond. Most of these wars have been characterised by extreme brutality. In Rwanda alone, in a matter of 100 days, about a million people were massacred - a scale of killings that is almost unprecedented in world history. So even if there are "good" reasons for conflicts, there are no "good" reasons why these conflicts degenerate into violence and brutality that shame humanity.

Tackling and preventing armed conflict in developing countries requires a comprehensive long-term approach, which utilises all available policy instruments in a coherent and integrated manner. It is therefore welcome that the British Government has adopted a ‘joined-up’ approach to peace-keeping and the management and prevention of violent conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa with the establishment of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Conflict Prevention in Africa.

The publication by the Sub-Committee of the consultation document "The causes of conflict in Africa" (hereafter referred to as ‘the paper’) is a further important move in the development of a comprehensive UK policy framework for conflict prevention and Saferworld particularly welcomes the focus in Part II on the need to identify and address the causes of conflict and the commitment in Part IV to "link immediate needs to longer-term strategy".

Ecological Sources of Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa
African Centre for Technology Studies
http://www.acts.or.ke/Eco-Project.htm

The African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) has launched a  policy research and information dissemination project  to examine the extent to which environmental or ecological factors such as natural resource scarcity and ecological stress contribute to political conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa.