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Africa Center’s latest community news:
ACSS Alumni Chapter Holds Conference in Senegal
Click here for photos from this event.Military officers, high-ranking civilian government officials and members of the diplomatic corps gathered on November 19, 2011, in Dakar, Senegal, to discuss promoting a culture of peace and development in West Africa. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies’ Senegal chapter, led by 2008 ACSS Visionary Award recipient General Lamine Cissé, sponsored the event. The Chief of Staff to Senegal’s Defense Minister M. Birane Niang led the conference, which was the first held by the country’s chapter since its July 2011 re-launch.
Academic and military experts considered how best to promote a culture of peace and development in the region and attempted to define the roles of civil society and security forces towards that objective. During his opening remarks, Cissé thanked ACSS for its constant support of the Senegalese chapter. He reminded the audience that ACSS was founded in Dakar in 1999, giving Senegal a special place in the organization’s history.
ACSS chapters throughout Africa provide a forum for community members to develop independent programs that support common defense and security interests, maintain communication with the center and in-country U.S. Embassy colleagues, and provide networking opportunities between military and civilian colleagues.
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Developing National Security Strategy/ Security Sector Reform in Guinea
After several decades of authoritarian rule, the Republic of Guinea has been undergoing an intense period of political openness and economic and social transformation since Professor Alpha Condé’s election to president. Central to this process of political recomposition are the struggles aimed at combating and reversing the country’s past and the construction of a democratic future. Against this backdrop and with the approval of the government, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies’ (ACSS) Guinea community chapter held a workshop at the Riviera Hotel in Conakry, Guinea, on October 20-21, 2011. The Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the African Institute for Security Sector Transformation (AISST), and ACSS collaborated to produce the event. Attendees discussed the development of national security strategy and security sector reform, two critical issues necessary to ensure that Guinea’s political and economic affairs are conducted in ways compatible with the interests and wishes of the people.Forty-two participants, including Guinean civilian and military officials and civil society organizations, guest speakers and experts from Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Switzerland, and the United States attended the workshop. The Secretary-General of the Ministry of Interior and Security, Dr. Mohamed Beau Keita, represented the government of Guinea. Other key participants included Prof. Mathurin Houngnikpo, ACSS; Dr. Jean-Jacques Gacond, DCAF; Gen. Lamine Cissé, UN Coordinator of Security Sector Reform in Guinea; Gen. Camara Kaba, ACSS Guinea Chapter President; Col. Birame Diop, AISST; and Mrs. Patricia Newton Moller, U.S. Ambassador to Guinea.
Participants agreed that the challenge for Guinea’s national security strategy is to develop a process for allocating roles, responsibilities, and resources among the different security organizations that protect the state and citizens. They acknowledged that this process might take place in an environment where the state no longer has a monopoly on the means of violence, and concurred that a transformation of Guinea’s security sector is what is needed rather than the ongoing process of reform. However, they concluded, the country would not achieve this in isolation; it must be embedded in a broader process of political reform and improved public sector governance.
ACSS Conducts Botswana alumni chapter’s symposium on environmental challenges to the country’s security
Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) staff members, Dr. Mathurin Houngnikpo, Mr. Bradley Anderson and Ms. Emily Renard were in Gaborone in mid-September to take part in the Botswana alumni chapter’s symposium on environmental challenges to the country’s security.
More than 100 Botswana civilian and military leaders and their US counterparts attended the September 19 conference, which was part of ACSS’s community chapter Topical Outreach Program Series (TOPS).
ACSS community member Augustine Makgonatsotlhe, Permanent Secretary at the Office of the President, opened the symposium by saying he was focused on engaging with civil society and improving citizens’ understanding of the military. He applauded the ACSS chapter for being a forum of debate and called its evolving maturity a sign of Botswana’s healthy democracy.
For her part, US Ambassador Michelle Gavin praised the professionalism of the Botswana Defence Force in executing its duties for the betterment of the whole nation.
The alumni chapter’s executive committee decided to devote the day’s major presentations to environmental challenges to stability and national security.
The audience first heard from the Institute for Security Studies’ Dr. Wilson Kipkore on the mounting concerns of climate change, natural disasters and food insecurity threatening the nation. He focused on the dangers inherent in competition for scarce water, saying that nations need to bolster regulations governing water allocation and use but, more importantly, must work to enforce the rules inside their own borders and regionally. He called on Africans to include the safeguarding of infrastructure and the environment when endeavoring in peacekeeping operations around the continent.
Later, ACSS’s academic chair of civil-military relations, Dr. Mathurin C. Houngnikpo, spoke about how leaders could better address environmental and security issues if they worked across borders to form regional collaborations.
The lectures sparked an energetic and frank discussion by attendees about the role of sustainable development and energy generation in the context of Botswana, environmental crimes, and the possibilities of regional cooperation. Many said they had never thought of environmental issues as security concerns. They decided that alumni must become advocates for environmental protection within the government of Botswana and in regional associations.
The chapter’s leadership said the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security voiced hopes that the alumni organization would act as a bridge between generations, creating a platform for retired senior military and civilian officers to stay engaged and offer guidance to active leaders on the country’s security issues.
The ACSS community chapter Topical Outreach Program Series is the organization’s flagship initiative for maintaining active, positive and substantive Africa Center relationships with ACSS community members, expanding on efforts to reach non-traditional audiences in Africa, and continuing Africa Center academic programming on the continent in countries not visited through other formal ACSS programs. TOPS are run in 29 ACSS community chapters throughout Africa.
The Africa Center for Strategic Studies is the premier agency of the United States charged with advancing U.S. security interests in Africa through the development of a self-sustaining, networked and empowered community of current and future African security sector leaders.
Africa Center for Strategic Studies Mourns the Death of Wangari Maathai
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) community member Wangari Maathai died September 25 at the Nairobi Hospital after a long fight against ovarian cancer. She was 71.The tireless environmental activist won her award in 2004 for years of standing up against a corrupt regime that sought to tear down the forests surrounding Nairobi. She endured physical and mental abuse while pressing the government to adopt democratic reform and sustainable development strategies, along the way founding the community-organizing Green Belt Movement in 1977.
“Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa,” the Nobel committee said in announcing the top honor to the first female in Africa to receive it. “She has served as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to better their situation.”
Holding a doctorate in anatomy from the University of Nairobi, Maathai was also a valuable member of the ACSS community. She spoke powerfully to African military and civilian leaders during the organization’s 2007 Senior Leaders Seminar in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She left her audience with much to think about after arguing that environmental security had become a key strategic challenge on the continent.
Ambassador (ret.) William M. Bellamy, the Director of ACSS, recalled that Maathai was completely surprised when she learned she had won the Nobel Prize.
“She was too busy as an activist, new member of parliament and assistant minister for environmental affairs to think about personal accolades,” Bellamy said. “Wangari possessed an extraordinary sense of the dangers of environmental degradation in Africa, and was tireless and courageous in rallying governments and ordinary citizens alike to confront this challenge. We will miss her greatly, but her inspiration lives on.”
The ACSS community mourns the passing of a friend and a “true African heroine,” as Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called her. We extend condolences to both her family and our Kenyan chapter during this time of loss.
Sierra Leone Forms a Community Chapter
Senior members of Sierra Leone’s government and diplomatic corps were among the 47 people who attended the ceremony to launch ACSS’s 29th Community Chapter, August 17, in Freetown. The new chapter provides a forum for community members to develop independent programs in support of common defense and security interests, maintain communication with the Africa Center and in-country U.S. Embassy colleagues and have networking opportunities with military and civilian colleagues in their country and region.
Following opening remarks by Michael Owen, U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Ambassador Joseph Blell, chapter vice president thanked the audience for coming at this important event. The Honorable Alfred Paulo Conteh, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Defense, also offered congratulatory remarks to the new chapter.
The chapter launch was an important component of the first Topical Outreach Symposium held in Sierra Leone. The symposium was an opportunity to integrate ideas on Transnational Threats and Organized Crime as well as Elections and Security. Simon Davis, an expert in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing - and Dr. Monde Muyangwa, ACSS’s Dean of Academic Affairs and Faculty, made presentations during the event.
Participants heard from Davis about the current issues in combating terrorism and other illegal global activities. He provided a comprehensive review of transnational threats and organized crime including terrorism, drug trafficking, weapons and minerals smuggling, and human trafficking. These discussions helped the participants re-shape their perceptions on drug trafficking and transnational threats. Resources –human and infrastructure- were also a key theme in the discussion. Davis acknowledged that even though financial resources were limited, government officials can be more creative in their resource management, and also seek a greater engagement with civil society in addressing the transnational threats. Davis also addressed future threats and threat assessment.
Dr. Muyangwa followed with a presentation on elections and security, a timely topic with Sierra Leone national elections scheduled for 2012. She reminded participants that elections are not an event; but rather a key and essential part of a much larger democratic process. She talked about overall trends and trajectory of democracy and elections in Africa, as well as the key principles and benchmarks underpinning credible elections. While using case studies to acknowledge the progress that Africa has made in this regard, she also highlighted several key challenges including the very high stakes associated with elections, which are a key and integral part of democracy, the imbalance of power among government branches as well as the lack of capacity of key agencies. She talked about the need to enhance qualitative democracy in Africa, including the need to hold leaders and governments more accountable on what they do to improve the well being of their citizens in between elections. She then concluded by addressing the key elements of successful elections to include: the development of frameworks, planning of elections, election administration and management bodies, best practices and lessons learned in the execution of elections, and mechanisms for addressing post-election grievances. When the question of ethnicity came up, she encouraged participants to think more broadly about a vision for Sierra Leone, encouraging policy makers and scholars to, rather than shy away from ethnicity and what it means to be a citizen, who can and can’t be a citizen, and how one becomes a citizen. She cautioned however, that given the sensitivities involved, this national discussion on ethnicity and citizenship should not be held at the same time as or in close proximity to elections.
During the panel-led discussion, numerous hot-topic issues and views were presented, discussed and farther examined by participants, to include corruption, unemployment, power-sharing arrangements in Africa, ethnicity and nationality in elections, and life after elections.
In his closing remarks, Ambassador Blell reiterated that the new chapter was committed to helping the government focus on creative resource management and implementation of policies and community members will address issues related to ethno-centrism during non-election periods. Corruption will continue to be a serious impediment to progress in Sierra Leone, Ambassador Blell said, but with the launch of the ACSS chapter, participants will work to use academic principles to address some of these current challenges.
Click here for photos from this event.