Africa Facing Human Security Challenges In The 21st Century

Africas dynamic security environment is characterized by great diversityfrom conventional challenges such as insurgencies, resource and identity conflicts, and post-conflict stabilization to growing threats from piracy, narcotics trafficking, violent extremism, and organized crime taking root in urban slums, among others. This precarious environment jeopardizes security at the societal, community and individual levels. In a globalized and interconnected world, millions of people worldwide are affected by some form of human insecurity. Infectious and parasitic diseases annually kill millions. Internally displaced persons number millions, including 5 million in Sudan alone. In Zambia 1 million people in a population of 11 million are reported to be HIV-positive, a situation much worse in other countries. Potable water crisis looms almost everywhere. In this book Tatah Mentan points out the need to shift the focus away from a state-centric and military-strategic emphasis on security to an interdisciplinary and people-centric approach that embraces notions like global citizenship, empowerment and participation. The primary elements of economic, food, health, environment, personal, community and political security all comprise the broader understanding of human security in an intricately interconnected world.

Through the lens of human security their book examines the continent's most pressing security challenges--from identity conflict and failing states to terrorism, disease, and environmental degradation--and in doing so provides a comprehensive look at the complexities of building peace and stability in modern-day Africa.

Environmental and human security issues are vital national security interests in African states because most citizens are engaged in daily struggles to survive. Chronic resource scarcities and degradations fuel individual struggles, along with political conflicts among different groups vying to control and benefit from scarce resources. Observers agree on importance of expanding national security in African states, but without consensus on optimal approach for studying or improving environmental and human security problems. Although the military is an influential institution in African countries, no work has addressed how, or if national and foreign militaries should be involved in promoting human and environmental security. This book combines ten original studies to discuss important non-traditional security issues facing countries located in each region of Africa. This volume reflects an assumption that one must have case-specific knowledge, use multidisciplinary and multi-level conceptual frameworks, and have appreciation of feasible and desirable public policies to understand and address complex non-traditional security concerns. Part One has three essays based on papers presented at 49th International Studies Association meeting in March 2008, plus two additional studies. Part Two focuses on understanding emerging transcontinental issues using interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks. Part Three has recommendations, remediation and conclusions via mini-case studies. The final chapter ties ten studies together and gives ideas about future role of US military forces in Africa non-traditional security areas--Publisher's description.

Against the backdrop of a globalized world, with the key players having to contend with the changing nature of power in international relations and Africa of the 21st century faced with new realities, this book was conceived to expand and push the scope of inquiry into a new direction in strategic thinking. It was designed to examine various issues that are related to the security of Africa as a sub-system within the international system. The book is an attempt to examine how some basic security issues define the position of Africa within the international system and determine the dynamics of African participation in the ordering of a global world order. Part of the intention is to show the forms that the factors of African security would take in the foreseeable future as these factors would determine the relationship between African states and the non-African world as well as influence the developments within Africa itself."

The AU System does not shy away from its inglorious past that characterised the OAU from its inception in 1963 until the start of its transformation during the early 1990s. Coming of age at the height of the Cold War, the OAU was politically torn between competing East-West political ideologies that instilled fear among and between the newly independent African states. African leaders of that era, who were also founding fathers of the continental Organisation, were driven by an inordinate desire for power for safeguarding national independence and sovereignty. By extension, this resulted in many of them remaining in office for far longer than was necessary. Convinced of their mandate to safeguard Africa's sovereignty, they sought to claim that they were the only ones bequeathed with love of country, sufficient wisdom and commitment to safeguard national independence.

This edited volume explores human security challenges in the context of Turkey. Turkey occupies a critical geopolitical position between Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus. It is an important peace-broker in regional conflicts and a leading country in peacekeeping operations, and has been a generous donor for disaster response around the world. However, Turkey is also facing a number of fundamental sociocultural and development challenges and its internal stability is affected by a protracted armed conflict based on Kurdish separatism. In other words, Turkey is at a crossroads in its transformation from a state-centred security perspective to one based on human security. To explore selected human security challenges within a wider context of peace and development, this volume focuses on a number of key issues in relation to democratization and social cohesion, before going on to investigate the role of Turkey as an agent of peace in the international context. Written by academics from the fields of peace studies, international relations, politics and development studies, the discussions examine and highlight the issues that Turkey must overcome if it is to successfully strengthen its human security trajectories in the near future. This book will be of much interest to students of human security, Turkish politics, conflict management, peace studies and IR in general.

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, , course: Development and Governance, language: English, abstract: This paper seeks to show that institutional reforms are urgently needed in the area of security (physical security, human security & state security) especially as the general idea that the inability of most African states during their developmental stage to ensure national cohesion, as relevant as it might seem, is being overtaken by other emerging factors notably their inability to control boundaries and provide their citizens’ right to life of which freedom is a very important component. These perceived weaknesses of most States in Africa epitomize the concept of failed states. This paper proposes a merger between human security and state security as the contemporary security breaches are multidimensional and in a State’s bid to adequately roll out measures to tackle the latter, it is only rational that the situation will be analyzed holistically. To address this issue our article adopted the following problematic: «What could be done to ensure that the culture of peace, conflict prevention and resolution in the wake of the numerous security challenges lead to development and by extension sustainable development?»

In Africa, various conditions pose pervasive threats to human security. Addressing these threats and promoting human security therefore constitute formidable challenges. As the paradigmatic shift in the discourse on and practice of human security has led to a change in the normative emphasis from sovereignty and non-intervention to responsibility and international humanitarian and human rights norms, questions arise not only as to the relationship between human security and human rights but also as to the contribution of the human rights system in addressing human security threats and promoting human freedom. What tools does the African human rights system have at its disposal that can be used in the promotion of human security on the continent? What are the roles of the African Commission and the AHRC in this regard? What are the potentials and the challenges? How best can these human rights bodies be employed to optimise their contributions to addressing the pervasive human security threats and to promoting the well-being of individuals and communities on the continent? This monograph investigates these and similar issues, including the basic one of the interface between human rights and human security.