Africa’s approach to mediation has become more inclusive over the past two decades. Impetus for this shift has come from within Africa: driven by the practice and activism of civil society, women and young people demanding to be heard; anchored in the evolution of continental norms such as the move from ‘non-interference’ to ‘non-indifference’ and the promotion of ‘African solutions’; and embodied in the African Union’s (AU) ‘roadmap’ for inclusive and sustainable development, Agenda 2063, and the 2019 Continental Framework on Youth, Peace and Security.
African policymakers, practitioners and peacebuilders have pioneered more inclusive strategies and ‘multi-track’ mediation at continental and subregional levels as ways to enhance the legitimacy of mediation processes, apply pressure on the negotiating parties, and broaden implementation of agreements reached.
Africans have also played active and impactful roles in championing inclusivity around the world. Namibia, holding the presidency of the UN Security Council, played a critical role in developing UNSC Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, while the AU and the continent’s regional economic communities (RECs) frequently invoke UNSCR Resolution 1325 and its successor resolutions at the UN to encourage women’s participation in peace processes. African youth leaders contributed to global efforts such as the five-year action plan for youth-inclusive peace processes, ‘We are in this together’, developed under the auspices of the Global Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security in 2022.
However, ‘track one’ negotiations between the conflict parties remain predominantly the preserve of older men, typically current or former heads of state, and the small teams of (generally male) advisers they bring with them. Among other problems, this model has limited the development of sustained in-house mediation support capacity in either the AU or the RECs. More needs to be done to ensure implementation of Africa’s far-sighted normative framework for inclusion, drawing on the innovative practices that women have brought to the continent’s peacemaking, and for the growing demands from the continent’s young people (Africa’s median age is 19) to be included in the decisions that will shape their future.
Institutionalising inclusivity in African mediation
The AU, RECs, and African states have adapted policies and established mechanisms to facilitate mediation inclusivity – pushed and supported by civil society organisations. For instance, the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) and the AU co-produced the AU’s Handbook on mediation, which includes guidelines on promoting women’s participation in mediation.
The AU, RECs and African governments have established formal structures for women to access mediation processes, notably in 2017 when the Network of African Women in Conflict Prevention and Mediation (FemWise) was created as a subsidiary body of the AU’s Panel of the Wise. FemWise sought to institutionalise a network of women to conduct preventive diplomacy and mediation at different levels.
By 2021, FemWise numbered 465 members across 50 countries. High-profile members have included Former AU Commission Chair Nkozana Dlamini-Zuma, former President of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and former President of Malawi Joyce Banda. Despite this impressive reach and membership, FemWise’s rate of deployment has nonetheless been disappointing. During 2022 it provided support to peace processes in Chad and Sudan; it has also worked with RECs to create a network of sub-regional and national chapters. But for the most part its engagements have been restricted to communitylevel mediation, and its reach has not yet translated consistently into senior appointments and positioning.
A notable exception was the appointment of former South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as one of the three mediators supporting negotiations to end the Tigray–Ethiopia conflict in November 2022. Neither delegation at these talks included a single woman negotiator, however.
Meanwhile, the region has also tried to institutionalise pathways for young women and men to access mediation initiatives. The Economic Community of West African States created the West Africa Youth Council, the East African Community a Youth Ambassadors Program, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) a Youth Forum for Peace. More recently, the AU in 2022 launched the Network of African Youth on Conflict Prevention and Mediation (WiseYouth).
Inclusive mediation in practice
Progress in inclusivity in African mediation has evolved from practice, reflecting the commitment and innovation of key mediators and communities. Mediation processes in Kenya and South Sudan illustrate progress and challenges, while, as is discussed in more detail below, analysis of a new dataset reveals that consideration of youth issues, though still a struggle, is consistently better in African peace efforts than elsewhere.
Kenya
The 2008 Kenya National Dialogue Reconciliation (KNDR) was brokered by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the head of the AU Panel of Eminent African Personalities. Nearly six weeks of negotiations resulted in Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga signing a power-sharing agreement and launching a constitutional review process that would pave the way for Kenya to vote in favour of a new constitution in 2010. The KNDR was marked by the comparatively high level of women’s participation, with 25 per cent of the (admittedly small) mediation teams being women. Female representation ranged from former Mozambique First Lady Graça Machel’s presence as a member of the AU Panel, to female senior advisers deployed by the AU and UN, as well as the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.
Annan was described by one adviser as using ‘inclusion as leverage’, a significant innovation. As his adviser Meredith Preston-McGhie recalled, Annan ‘made an early determination that he would enable the people to set the narrative of what had happened in the conflict and not just rely on the political parties’. He set aside four days for consultations with a diverse array of Kenyans – elders, youth, smaller political parties, business leaders, and civil society, with dedicated time to talk to women. Machel led a process in which diverse women came together to develop understanding between them and formulate proposals.
Meanwhile, the Kenya Women’s Consultative Group (KWCG) broadened women’s participation by providing a pathway between women’s organisations and the mediation team, holding consultative sessions with women’s organisations across the country and lobbying the mediation team to incorporate gender into the negotiations. The KWCG’s efforts enabled the group to achieve the status of a semi-official consultative body and helped inform the gender provisions of the agreements reached, for example a gender quota in implementation commissions. It was notable that the voices advancing women’s perspectives at the table included those of men as well as women.
South Sudan
In South Sudan, extensive efforts by women, young people and wider civil society increased the diversity of representation in the negotiations that led to the 2018 Revitalised Agreement of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (RARCSS) and contributed to a more inclusive peace process and outcomes. IGAD had launched the High-Level Revitalisation Forum (HLRF) in June 2017 to revive the collapsed 2015 peace agreement. Efforts to promote women’s participation drew on a history of multi-level advocacy, including the work of the Women’s Bloc of South Sudan, which had secured a seat in the earlier IGAD-led process. But they received new impetus at the IGAD High-Level Independent Experts Meeting held in August 2017, when the four women among the 22 delegates pressed for enhanced levels of women’s participation. In 2018, 25 per cent of the delegates who signed the Revitalised Agreement were women.
Significantly, this group also pushed for the creation of the South Sudan Women’s Coalition (SSWC). Representing 40 organisations, the SS WC sought to bolster the legitimacy of high-level female negotiators by securing buy-in from grassroots and other organisations. In the ensuing process, it worked alongside the South Sudan Civil Society Forum and the South Sudan Coalition of Youth Organisations to insist that all were formally represented as delegates of the HLRF rather than observers, and to coordinate positions and alliance-building.
Consolidating positions in the negotiations was not without challenges. A roundtable discussion in December 2018 among many of the South Sudanese women leaders who had been involved in the process recalled that women had faced challenges penetrating its patriarchal culture, as well in engaging in a rapidly evolving process with limited technical preparation. As in other contexts, the women’s groups had to address significant ethnic, political and socio-economic divisions among themselves as well as in broader civil society participation, while also navigating the risks of political ‘capture’ of their processes by some of the parties. However, they were for the most part able to align their advocacy – devising, for example, a process of agreeing and then announcing ‘red lines’ and ‘green lines’ to facilitate the promotion of their positions – and to act as an information conduit between the high-level talks and a variety of constituencies outside the HLRF. The SS WC facilitated the development of the South Sudan Women Position on the Promotion of Durable Peace and Reconciliation in 2017 and contributed to the gender mainstreaming of the agreement, including by securing seats in monitoring bodies and technical committees.
Young South Sudanese made notable contributions to broadening both participation and public engagement in the process, including by their adroit use of social media – an important innovation at the time. Ana Ta’ban (‘I am tired’ in Arabic), an artist collective group, was at the forefront of these efforts, and collaborated with the National Youth Union (NYU) and the Youth Organizations Coalition (YOC) in the #SouthSudanIsWatching campaigns to create entry points for youth groups to influence the HLRF. The ‘E-Delegates Forum’, which involved 30-minute Facebook livestreams with a delegate in the HLRF, was the flagship initiative in this campaign. Additionally, #SouthSudanIsWatching used social media campaigns, photojournalism, radio programmes and art festivals to share information and draw attention to the youth perspectives.
Youth inclusion – still an uphill struggle
Youth organisations trying to access African mediation processes have faced an uphill struggle and have generally found most traction at the sub-national and local level. It is notable, for example, that youth involvement in the process leading to the Nakuru County Peace Accord in Kenya in August 2012 (as described by Irena Grizelj, Michael Frank Alar and Ayak Chol Deng Alok in Accord 29), remains a key example in the canon of youth participation.
Other peace initiatives pushed by young people include those of the Interfaith Platform of Central African Youth (PIJCA) in the Central African Republic since 2014. The PIJCA, representing over 40 groups and 2,000 members, has been active in 4th district, once the epicentre of violence in the capital Bangui. It negotiated with armed groups to allow humanitarian assistance and peacekeepers to reach conflict-affected communities. It also reached out to armed groups to participate in peace processes, organised interfaith dialogues, and provided financial support to young ex-combatants.
Unfortunately, instances where youth mobilisation results in concrete outcomes – such as the Kafanchan Peace Declaration signed in Nigeria in 2016, where each of the 29 delegations including a youth representative – remain the exception rather than the norm.
Indeed, a new dataset from Asli Ozecelik and Daniel Odin Shaw confirms that the incorporation of youth perspectives in peace agreements remains ‘marginal’ – appearing explicitly in just 12 per cent of agreements concluded in 70 peace processes worldwide between 1990 and 2022. The data does, however, show an upward trend in references to youth since 2010, with a marked prevalence in Africa: 84 per cent of the local agreements that refer to youth were reached in five African countries: Central African Republic, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, and South Sudan.
Moving forwards: realising aspirations
Since the 2000s, Africa has made significant progress in institutionalising its policy framework for inclusive peace processes, and in demonstrating the potential of multi-track mediation. The norms, structures and mechanisms established have not yet lived up to their potential, however. Experience has shown that, to be more impactful, institutional frameworks for inclusion need to be married with grassroots mobilisation and pressure, as well as proactive and innovative engagement by mediators and negotiators. For the region to continue to build on past innovative practice, the AU and regional African bodies should extend their approach to the high-level appointments of lead mediators to include some of the continent’s pre-eminent women and take steps to ensure that all its mediators are afforded expert assistance, including from women and youth representatives and advisers.
Lessons learned from inclusive, multi-track processes, such as the contributions of the women and youth coalitions in South Sudan, should inform future mediation efforts as well as the updating and operationalisation of mediation guidelines. These could clarify how lead mediators can effectively incorporate existing structures and resources, such as FemWise and WiseYouth, and emphasise processes – and outcomes – that are inclusive of diverse communities affected by conflict. Given the demographic profile of the continent, they should recognise the contributions to be made by its greatest resource: the young women and men determined to mobilise for a better tomorrow.
Innovative practice in Kenya and South Sudan was able to achieve important successes in bringing different voices and interests into peace talks – informal coalitions, grassroots networks, women and young people – using tactics like information exchanges, consultative dialogues and digital activism. As FemWise and WiseYouth look ahead, it is imperative that they build capacity on how to leverage digital activism to promote inclusion – an area of great potential, as Julie Hawke explores on p.102. The two networks should focus on developing robust communication strategies that engage women and young people effectively in digital spaces. FemWise does post sporadic updates on its Facebook and Twitter (now called X), while WiseYouth has, as yet, no notable online presence. Despite discussions dating back to 2019, as of late 2023 FemWise still does not have an interactive website or mobile application. Effective presence in digital spaces would allow FemWise and WiseYouth to act as resource centres, provide online training materials and other information and facilitate communication across the region.
