Summary Report of an International Conference entitled “Towards an African Conflict Prevention Strategy”

This document is a summary report of an international conference titled “Towards an African Conflict Prevention Strategy,” held on March 9-10, 2009, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Co-hosted by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale (ISPI), the event aimed to examine conflict prevention initiatives by the African Union (AU) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to support the operationalisation of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA).

• Structural sources of conflict in African states include power structures, state fragility, and weak institutional foundations. There is a noted need to integrate traditional indigenous institutions with modern westernized institutions, although this process faces inherent challenges.
• Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) possess a comparative advantage in conflict prevention because their grassroots presence allows them to detect threats to stability early. However, their effectiveness is hindered by government isolation, limited capacity, and geographical constraints.
• Operational prevention relies heavily on intelligence, which is described as the most effective early warning tool for protecting national interests. Intelligence services are expected to provide threat analysis and act as the "eyes and ears of the state."
• There is a perceived lack of political will among African governments and the international community (including the UN, AU, and EU) to proactively prevent conflicts. Critics argue that leaders are more reactive, focusing on short-term projects for re-election or spending on the effects of crises rather than their root causes.
• The concept of "African Ownership" and "African solution to African problems" is characterized by some as rhetoric used by the international community to transfer the burden of managing crises to African institutions following UN failures in Somalia, Rwanda, and Angola in the early 1990s.

APA

Institute for Security Studies (2009). Summary Report of an International Conference entitled “Towards an African Conflict Prevention Strategy”. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ISPIREP.PDF

Chicago

Institute for Security Studies. Summary Report of an International Conference entitled “Towards an African Conflict Prevention Strategy”. 2009. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ISPIREP.PDF.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Security Studies |title=Summary Report of an International Conference entitled “Towards an African Conflict Prevention Strategy” |date=March 2009 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ISPIREP.PDF |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforsecuritystudies2009summary, author = {{Institute for Security Studies}}, title = {{Summary Report of an International Conference entitled “Towards an African Conflict Prevention Strategy”}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2009}, month = mar, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ISPIREP.PDF}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }