State Building & Ontological Security in the Greater Horn (GHA) & Great Lakes of Africa (GLA)

The Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) and the Great Lakes of Africa (GLA), often characterized as arenas of civil conflict, of displaced populations and of economic crisis, have seen some of the bloodiest conflicts since the end of WWII, where the colonial plunder has been replaced by the privatization of pillage by ‘independent’ African nations! However, this picture does not reveal the feats of a continent that rising high. Africans are shading off the shackles of tyranny and poverty and realizing rapid growth rates and enhanced governance. However, there remains a lot to state building in the GHA & GLA.
International peace-building interventions are increasingly focused on rebuilding and re-configuring the state as a central feature in peace and development interventions, further consolidated by the growing international concern about weak, fragile, or failing states that also threaten global security. in a post-Washington Consensus era, the crucial role states has made state-building a priority, focused on social consensus, in which citizens sanction the legitimacy of the state. Structural Functionalism offers concepts of manifest functions (recognized and intended consequences of a social system) and latent functions (unintended consequences of a social system) of the state.
Nevertheless, what is to be done to build states? The presentation aims to direct IAR actions to work synergistically towards research in building democratic rules and institutions, coupled with public policy transformation, community based conflict management, leadership training and mentoring, diplomacy & martial action, alternatives framework for economic management, certification of natural resources & stemming resource plunder. The conclusion underpins the fact that in political reforms, state building is either conventionalized or sterilized on terrain of theory and often vacuously formalized on the ground of practice. It enters African society in relatively abstract and plain form, yet is expected to land itself to immediate and vital socio-political experience. It suggests itself, seems within reach only to elude, and appears readily practicable only to resist realization.
Key words: state building, conflict management, democratic rules & institutions, resilience
See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/15205498/State_Building_and_Ontological_Security_in_the_Greater_Horn_GHA_and_Great_L