The Tipping Point: Humanitarian Crisis, Early Action & Disaster Resilience Management: CAR, SS & Sahel

The Tipping Point:

Humanitarian Crisis, Early Action & Disaster Resilience Management: CAR, SS & Sahel

Strategic partnership and extent of new global humanitarian donor’s involvement

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Comparative Public Policy, Graduate School, AAU, costy@costantinos.net, Trustee, Africa Humanitarian Action www.africahumanitarian.org,

African Union Peace and Security Council

Open Session on Humanitarian Situation in Africa

African Union Hall, 19 August 2014, Addis Ababa,

Abstract

The complex political, economic, social and cultural phenomena of state failure are little understood with states such as Central African Republic, South Sudan and Sahel states plagued by rampant corruption, predatory elites, absence of the rule of law and severe ethnic or religious divisions. The ability of states to strip people of their rights to livelihoods security, behind the thin veneer ‘non interference in each other’s internal affairs’ is increasingly being challenged. Nevertheless, while the African Union’s political evolution may allow such novelties, how do the Responsibility to Protect projects pursue their goals consistently in varying contexts, but do so without resorting to a self-defeating, overly scripted and stage-managed political ‘play’? The world knew that the crisis in these nations was coming. Why didn’t we act early enough to stop the genocide in these countries?  How else can we engage crises societies and states so that they can protect themselves meaningfully?

Transitions from crises states to effective and capable states can be explained with reference to two institutional factors: institutions and rules. The central hypothesis is that the relative strength of local institutions determines the rules of the humanitarian principles that are installed. It requires a plural set of organizations which promote and protect rules of peaceful participation and competition. Hence, the UN, AU & donors’ strategies should focus on the different stages of capacity building of crises states: conflict prevention, containment and peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction in the social, political and economic spheres. Strategies need to be simultaneously ‘objective’, dealing with substantive issues and the institutional mechanisms for response, and ‘subjective’, in developing the awareness, understanding and expectations at all levels.

Key words: humanitarianism, conflict prevention, containment and peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction