United Nation Peace initiative in Africa: Effectiveness and Problems

Abstract

The research explored the complexities of the various United Nations peace initiatives in Africa; its effectiveness and varying challenges using South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as case studies. The study delved extensively into the issue of contemporary armed conflicts in Africa with a special emphasis on the conflicts in DRC and South Sudan and UN peace initiatives from historical perspectives, using both primary and secondary sources of data. The field survey was conducted in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Juba and Bor in South Sudan and Goma and Beni in the DRC. The study finds that the UN peace initiatives in the two countries experienced several challenges including funding, logistics, socio-cultural, hostile government policies, infrastructural, political, and economic constraints. The study also finds that the two UN missions recorded some successes in humanitarian interventions and peacebuilding, as the countries try to rebuild from the aftermath of the conflicts. The study recommends that the UN should increase humanitarian activities in the two countries and ensure economic empowerment for women and young people to reduce their vulnerability to conflict entrepreneurs. It is also recommended that the UN should review its peace-building mechanisms for greater effectiveness in tackling the increasing armed conflicts in Africa. The two African countries were selected due to their peculiarity in terms of humanitarian crises and the complexity of the internal armed conflicts, which have attracted several UN interventions.