Rethinking Global Security: An African Perspective?

The concept of global security has greatly evolved from what we knew it to be for a long time in the past. The old bi-polar international system that regulated relations between states has drastically restructured itself against the changing threats, needs and requirements of states, but has nevertheless remained an inadequate barrier for international peace and security. Today, the main threats to international peace and security are rooted in situations within states rather than between states, as is especially prevalent in the African context. Environmental degradation, social conflict and social strife, poverty, HIV/AIDS, etc are all projections of bad governance that have become more of a security concern than the traditional military antagonism that pitted nations against each other. This was the backdrop to the conceptualization of the Conference on Rethinking Global Security from an African Perspective held in February 2006 under the auspices of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The conference, that is the precursor to this publication, had the foregoing assumption that Africa was absent in the global security setting agenda, and that it required to infuse its lenses to the debate, in essence, 'colouring it African'. This was structured in the thematic delineations of Global Security Agenda Setting; African Regional Economic and Security Institutions  in Emerging Discourse on Global  Security; Environmental, Economic and Social Dimensions of Global Security and Human Rights and Democracy in Contemporary Global Security. However, three days of deliberation shed light to the fact that Africa has indeed contributed to the expanded definition of global security especially in the area of human and development security.

This book initiates a profiling of Africa’s role in global security agenda setting, a task that requires much more research and critical debate. It points to the need to further develop African perspectives and platforms, not necessarily only to make its voice louder in the international arena, but because no society can develop and find security on the basis of knowledge, values and practices that do not materialize from within those societies. This publication forms part of the continuing partnership between the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies of the University of Nairobi, building on earlier work by the two institutions, and in particular their collaboration in the penultimate publication African Regional Security Issues in the Age of Globalisation (2004).

Rethinking Global Security: An African Perspective?
Published by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung East and Horn of Africa. 2006.
ISBN 9966-9772-7-9
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