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6. Peacebuilding as Governance: The Case of the Pan-African Ministers Conference for Public and Civil Service
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121 S I X Peacebuilding as Governance The Case of the Pan-African Ministers Conference for Public and Civil Service C H r i S l A n d S b e r g t H e A F r i C A n C H A L L e n G e i S e S S e n t i A L L Y A C H A L L e n G e o F development, and the African crisis is primarily a crisis of the state. Africans therefore have to respond simultaneously to a two-pronged problematic, brought about by decades of internal misrule and externally driven wars and exploitation: governance and development. As such, the state has to be set at the very center of African politics and development. African states have since the end of the Cold War and apartheid searched for their own post–Cold War, postapartheid interstate paradigm to address the consequences of decades of African bad governance and superpower rivalries and proxy battles at the continent’s expense. Since 2002 with the formal establishment of the African union (Au), the continent’s most credible and legitimate interstate body, African states have pursued an “African Agenda” that spells out four areas of dynamic cooperation, or “calabashes”: peace and security; stability, or governance; socioeconomic development; and international cooperation . many continental and subcontinental actors and forums have emerged to embrace and champion this continental African Agenda. the Pan-African ministers Conference for Public and Civil Service, established in 1994, is one such African interstate actor that has provided indigenous intellectual support and acted almost as a lobby group in support of a governance approach to peacebuilding and statebuilding. 122 CHriS LAndSberG it is one that many scholars and observers know very little about, yet one that can tell us a great deal about Africa’s security-politico-development agenda and the peacebuilding challenges faced by the continent at the operational level. this chapter deals with the little-known Pan-African ministers Conference, which provides a forum for ministers who face weak governance infrastructures and massive public service delivery challenges, and helps them look outward to select global and continental postconflict tools and frameworks. it is an example of the continentalization of policy in Africa and demonstrates how government departments, other than the usual ministries of foreign affairs and defense, have staked a claim in foreign policy and security matters.the conference also potentially addresses two other problems. first, it can use postconflict reconstruction frameworks to address how political power is used and abused in continental affairs, and thus places the state and governance at the center of continental development. Second, it can address imbalances in the continent’s relations with outside powers, notably those from the West. typically, powerful industrialized states usurp the powers of African governments, to the point where these states lose much of their policy sovereignty. thus, the Pan-African ministers Conference can potentially reassert the role of national governments, and by extension the state, in the peacebuilding process. Postconflict reconstruction and development (PCrd) are stated as key objectives of both the Au and the Pan-African ministers Conference , but there are disagreements over what this means and which kinds of activities should be supported. Peacebuilding initiatives have typically taken, as their starting point, global institutions and their efforts to build peace in needy countries—an outsider-in approach. Scant attention is given to African or regional initiatives and efforts to ensure that external efforts dovetail with homegrown initiatives—an insider-out approach. but unless African efforts at statebuilding and development are made fundamental parts of the continent’s postconflict peacebuilding efforts, little will come of these initiatives. Since its first gathering in 1994 in tangier, morocco, the PanAfrican ministers Conference has prioritized postconflict reconstruction as a means of dealing with the question of the distribution of power, resources, and services. in that year, a regional conference on public administration was held in Windhoek in namibia, with the aim of modernizing postconflict public services.the Pan-African ministers [52.90.235.91] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:54 GMT) 123 Peacebuilding as governance: the Pan-African ministers Conference Conference was influenced by relevant resolutions of the united nations (un) general Assembly and by former un Secretary-general boutros-ghali’s 1992 report An Agenda for Peace. the ministers used these documents as a guide and subscribed to the idea that postconflict countries needed to embrace democratic governance and the notion...