22nd April, 2014
Nigeria will on Thursday 24 April lead the 15-member AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) on a debate to evolve a mechanism for the effort to attain a conflict-free Africa by 2020, Amb. Bulus Paul Lolo, has said.
Lolo, Nigeria’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Union (AU), is chairing the session for the Security Council for the month of April and will lead an open session on the debate.
The debate is “On Silencing the Guns: Pre-requisites for realising a Conflict-Free Africa by the Year 2020”.
Lolo said in Addis Ababa on Tuesday that the debate would evolve a robust institutional framework for effective prevention and combating the scourge of violent conflicts on the continent.
He said the conflicts had remained a serious challenge with heavy toll on the people and the economy of Africa, in spite of the liberation of the continent from colonial rule and the dismantling of apartheid.
“Violent conflicts have remained prevalent in some of parts of Africa, thus undermining development gains and efforts,” he said.
Lolo said the issues would guide the discourse to evolve mechanisms on how Africa, “acting alone, would address the internal and external factors that helped in sustaining the violent conflicts on the continent”.
He said the council would come up with strategies required to prevent the cycle of violent conflicts with the use of practical tools to neutralise actions and events that often triggered such conflicts.
The council will also review the use of the Continental Early Warning System, Panel of the Wise and other regional mechanisms which have served as its conflict prevention and management efforts, Lolo said.
The outcome of the debate will contribute to the development of a roadmap to underpin the attainment of a conflict-free Africa expected to be endorsed and ratified by the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government for implementation.
There are pockets of conflicts ranging from ethno-religious and political insurgency in parts of Africa, including Mali, South Sudan, Central African Republic Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Nigeria, Egypt and Libya.
The conflicts and insurgencies have led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly women and children with two million others so far displaced from their places of abode.