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The Challenges and Prospects of United Nations Peace-Keeping Missions in Africa- A Focus on Sudan 

Akwara, Azalahu F.; Akpan, Nse Etim; Ibiam, Egwu Okechukwu;  Arua, Christopher 

 

THE CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS OF UNITED NATIONS PEACE- 

KEEPING MISSIONS IN AFRICA- A FOCUS ON SUDAN 

 

*Akwara, Azalahu F., 2Akpan, Nse Etim, 3Ibiam,  

Egwu Okechukwu, & 4Arua, Christopher 
1,3&4Department of Political Science, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu 

Alike Ikwo. Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. 
1(akwara.francis@funai.edu.ng; +2348038032062; +2348072412414). 

2Department of Political Science, Federal University Wukari, Taraba State, Nigeria.  

E-mail: nseakpan04@yahoo.com 

 

Abstract 

The political evolution of Africa is replete with conflicts which have unfortunately gone beyond 

the capabilities of the continent to resolve without resort to foreign assistance especially in the 

critical field of military assistance. This study discusses the concept and practice of the United 

Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa, the challenges facing such operations as well as the 

prospects of resolving them. It conceptualizes peacekeeping, adopts the collective security 

paradigm in discussing the changing operational environment that has transformed UN 

traditional peacekeeping operations to the contemporary peacekeeping methods and the 

challenges that has led to half-baked results in such African operations. The study highlights the 

challenges and the prospects of these operations, recommends an improvement in the quality of 

preparation, planning, monitoring and evaluation of the processes by the Security Council, 

adoption of clear and actionable mandates by the UN, proper coordination between the Security 

Council and countries contributing troops, good risk analysis and transparency across the chain 

of command among others as necessary steps to address the challenges. It concludes that the UN 

has the capacity to surmount these challenges if adequate support is given to it by member 

countries. 

 

Key words: peace keeping; intervention; monitoring; evaluation; mandate; conflicts. 

 

Introduction 

The United Nation Organization (UNO) 

has undertaken about sixty-three 

peacekeeping missions between 1948 

and 2009 with over a quarter (25) of 

these operations in Africa. Today, 

current United Nations peace keeping 

operations stand at fifteen missions with 

Africa having seven of these ongoing 

peace keeping operations (www.un.org/ 

peacekeeping). The above shows clearly 

that Africa is an important case study for 

the analysis or evaluation of UN 

peacekeeping operations and also 

highlights the level of conflict engulfing 

the continent. The United Nations was 

established on the 26th of June 1945 with 

the charter signed in San Francisco, the 

United States of America. All African 

States are members of the world body 

the formation of which predates the 

independence of most of them. Within 

the continent are a plethora of conflicts 

which heighten the degree of insecurity, 

itself a clear manifestation of yet another 

phase in the political evolution of Africa. 

 

mailto:akwara.francis@funai.edu.ng
mailto:nseakpan04@yahoo.com
http://www.un.org/%20peacekeeping
http://www.un.org/%20peacekeeping


 

 

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During the 1950s and 60s, the people of 

Africa were united by their common 

struggle against foreign domination with 

their overriding interest being the total 

independence of these states from the 

shackles of colonialism and domination 

from a common enemy. These were the 

foreign colonial powers that were seen 

as not only dominating the people of the 

continent, but also exploiting the 

continent to their unfair advantage. 

While the situation in Namibia and 

South Africa remained a painful thorn in 

the flesh of the continent, the completion 

of the decolonization process in Africa 

threw up a new challenge of nation 

building which replaced the struggle for 

liberation. Perhaps one of the most 

critical developments in this process has 

been the extent to which internal 

differences, tensions and conflicts 

surfaced once the common bond of the 

struggle against a common enemy was 

loosened by the attainment of 

independence. These conflicts have 

unfortunately expanded in scope beyond 

the continent, thus, entailing a new form 

of dependence on foreign powers 

especially in the field of military 

assistance and peacekeeping (Onimode, 

2000:11) 

 

The African Heads of State had frowned 

seriously against what they viewed as 

the grave issue of foreign intervention in 

the Organization of African Unity 

(OAU) summit at Libreville in 1977, but 

since then the problem seemed to have 

intensified as more conflicts tend to rear 

their ugly heads within the continent 

instead of abating. As members of the 

United Nations Organization, African 

States are committed to the provisions of 

the UN Charter, Article 1 (1), which 

demands members “to maintain 

international peace and security, and to 

that end: to take effective collective 

measures for the prevention and removal 

of threats to peace” and it is binding on 

them, therefore, when they suffer severe 

conflicts, to resort to the instrumentality 

of the world body in resolving such 

conflicts particularly where the state in 

question lack the capacity to manage the 

conflict internally. 

 

However, such resort to third party 

intervention is not out of place as it 

remains one of the core objectives of the 

UN to maintain international peace and 

security. This the UN does through the 

use of peacekeeping missions in 

troubled spots all over the world. The 

peacekeeping instrument projects the 

UN as an arbiter with the capacity to 

promote collective security and maintain 

a world based on international law 

instead of the authority of weapons 

(Basu, 2005:22). The UN peacekeeping 

mission also ensures the enforcement of 

the collective will of the UN, instead of 

the partial interest of the most powerful 

of nations. As observed by Alan James 

(1990:11), “the tool of peacekeeping has 

proved to be the UN’s most direct 

contribution to the maintenance of peace 

and security in the world”. 

 

Statement of Problem 

The African continent has been plagued 

by incessant conflicts arising from 

numerous factors some of which 



 

 

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includes the struggle for resources, 

boundary disputes, despotic and 

undemocratic leadership, and military 

intervention in governance as well as sit-

tight leadership syndrome of most 

African leaders. It is therefore stating the 

obvious that most African states lack the 

ability and capacity to contain these 

conflicts thus, they often resort to the 

UN for assistance in resolving them. 

Again, the task of assembling a 

multinational force as required for 

peacekeeping remains a daunting one. 

Similarly, each conflict situation wears a 

different character as no two conflict 

situation can really be the same even 

when they have similar issues afield. 

Thus, the UN is opened to some great 

task in the planning and execution of 

peacekeeping operations. However, the 

problem arising from this development 

which motivated this study is the fact 

that the UN faces numerous problems 

and challenges in the course of 

intervention in these conflicts which 

demand some investigations. This study 

remains one of such efforts in bringing 

to the fore, these challenges and 

discussing them extensively in the 

context of the African peacekeeping 

experience. 

 

Theoretical Orientation 

This study adopts the theory of 

collective security as a theoretical 

framework. In doing this, it realizes that 

the entire idea of peacekeeping is 

founded on the basis of collective 

security which entails the coming 

together of troops from different 

countries of the world with the sole aim 

of defending and restoring peace to 

restive nations. Collective security 

remains a system by which states have 

attempted to prevent or stop wars. Under 

a collective security arrangement, an 

aggressor against any one state is 

considered an aggressor against all other 

states, which act together to repel the 

aggressor. This is primarily the basis for 

peacekeeping by nations in the 

international system. Collective security 

arrangements have always been 

conceived as being global in scope; this 

is in fact a defining characteristic, 

distinguishing them from regional 

alliances such as the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO). In fact, 

both the League of Nations and the 

United Nations were founded on the 

principle of collective security (Wight, 

1977:149). 

 

Collective security can be understood as 

a security arrangement, political, 

regional, or global, in which each state 

in the system accepts that the security of 

one is the concern of all, and therefore 

commits to a collective response to 

threats to, and breaches of, the peace. 

Collective security is more ambitious 

than systems of alliance security or 

collective defence in that it seeks to 

encompass the totality of states within a 

region or indeed globally, and to address 

a wide range of possible threats. While 

collective security is an idea with a long 

history, its implementation in practice 

has proved problematic. Several 

prerequisites have to be met for it to have 

a chance of working (Yost, 1977:149). 



 

 

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Collective security is one of the most 

promising approaches for peace and a 

valuable device for power management 

on an international scale. Cardinal 

Richelieu proposed a scheme for 

collective security in 1629, which was 

partially reflected in the 1648 Peace of 

Westphalia. In the eighteenth century, 

many proposals were made for 

collective security arrangements, 

especially in Europe. The concept of a 

peaceful community of nations was 

outlined in 1795 in Immanuel Kant’s 

Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical 

Sketch. Kant outlined the idea of a 

league of nations that would control 

conflict and promote peace between 

states. However, he argues for the 

establishment of a peaceful world 

community not in a sense that there 

would be a global government but in the 

hope that each state would declare itself 

as a free state that respects its citizens 

and welcomes foreign visitors as fellow 

rational beings. His key argument is that 

a union of free states would promote 

peaceful society worldwide. Therefore, 

in his view, there can be a perpetual 

peace shaped by the international 

community rather than by a world 

government (Yost, 1977:149). 

 

One of the most active and articulate 

exponents of collective security theory 

during the immediate pre-war years was 

the Soviet Foreign Minister, Maxim 

Litvinov. However, there are grounds 

for doubt about the depth of Soviet 

commitment to this principle, as well as 

that of Western powers. After the 

Munich Agreement of September 1938 

and the passivity of outside powers in 

the face of German occupation of the 

remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 

1939 it was shown that the Western 

Powers were not prepared to engage in 

collective security against aggression by 

the Axis Powers together with the Soviet 

Union, Soviet foreign policy was revised 

and Litvinov was replaced as foreign 

minister in early May 1939, in order to 

facilitate the negotiations that led to the 

Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact with 

Germany, signed by Litvinov's 

successor, Vyacheslav Molotov, on 

August 23 of that year. The war in 

Europe broke out a week later, with the 

German invasion of Poland on 

September 1 (Sharp, 2008:155). 

 

Organski (1960:461) lists five basic 

assumptions underlying the theory of 

collective security. These according to 

him are: (i) in an armed conflict, 

member nation-states will be able to 

agree on which nation is the aggressor 

(ii) all member nation-states are equally 

committed to contain and constrain the 

aggression, irrespective of its source or 

origin (iii) all member nation-states have 

identical freedom of action and ability to 

join in proceedings against the aggressor 

(iv) the cumulative power of the 

cooperating members of the alliance for 

collective security will be adequate and 

sufficient to overpower the might of the 

aggressor and (v) in the light of the threat 

posed by the collective might of the 

nations of a collective security coalition, 

the aggressor nation will modify its 

policies, or if unwilling to do so, will be 

defeated. 



 

 

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International co-operation to promote 

collective security originated in the 

Concert of Europe that developed after 

the Napoleonic Wars in the nineteenth 

century in an attempt to maintain the 

status quo between European states and 

so avoid war. This period also saw the 

development of international law with 

the first Geneva Convention establishing 

laws about humanitarian relief during 

war and the international Hague 

Conventions of 1899 and 1907 

governing rules of war and the peaceful 

settlement of international disputes. The 

forerunner of the League of Nations, the 

Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), was 

formed by peace activists William 

Randal Cremer and Frederic Passy in 

1889. The organization was 

international in scope with a third of the 

members of parliament, in 24 countries 

with parliaments, serving as members of 

the IPU by 1914. Its aims were to 

encourage governments to solve 

international disputes by peaceful means 

and arbitration and annual conferences 

were held to help governments refine the 

process of international arbitration. The 

IPU's structure consisted of a Council 

headed by a President which would later 

be reflected in the structure of the 

League (Claude, 1961:219). 

 

At the start of the twentieth century two 

power blocs emerged through alliances 

between the European Great Powers. 

These were the communist (East) and 

the capitalist (West) blocs led by both 

the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic 

(USSR) and the United States of 

America (USA) respectively. It was 

these alliances that came into effect at 

the start of the First World War in 1914, 

drawing all the major European powers 

into the war. This was the first major war 

in Europe between industrialized 

countries and the first time in Western 

Europe the results of industrialization 

(for example mass production) had been 

dedicated to war. The result of this 

industrial warfare was an unprecedented 

casualty level with eight and a half 

million members of armed services 

dead, an estimated 21 million wounded, 

and approximately 10 million civilian 

deaths (Claude, 1961:220). 

 

By the time the fighting ended in 

November 1918, the war had had a 

profound impact, affecting the social, 

political and economic systems of 

Europe and inflicting psychological and 

physical damage on the continent. Anti-

war sentiment rose across the world; the 

First World War was described as "the 

war to end all wars" and its possible 

causes were vigorously investigated. 

The causes identified included arms 

races, alliances, secret diplomacy, and 

the freedom of sovereign states to enter 

into war for their own benefit. The 

perceived remedies to these were seen as 

the creation of an international 

organization whose aim was to prevent 

future war through disarmament, open 

diplomacy, international co-operation, 

restrictions on the right to wage wars, 

and penalties that made war unattractive 

to nations (Claude, 1961:220). 

 

After World War I, the first large scale 

attempt to provide collective security in 



 

 

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modem times was the establishment of 

the League of Nations in 1919-20. The 

provisions of the League of Nations 

Covenant represented a weak system for 

decision-making and for collective 

action. An example of the failure of the 

League of Nations' collective security is 

the Manchurian Crisis, when Japan 

occupied part of China (which was a 

League member). After the invasion, 

members of the League passed a 

resolution calling on Japan to withdraw 

or face severe penalties. Given that 

every nation on the League of Nations 

council had veto power, Japan promptly 

vetoed the resolution, severely limiting 

the League of Nation's ability to 

respond. After one year of deliberation, 

the League passed a resolution 

condemning the invasion without 

committing the League's members to 

any action against it. The Japanese 

replied by quitting the League. 

However, the 1945 United Nations 

Charter, although containing stronger 

provisions for decision-making and 

collective military action than those of 

the League of Nations, it does not 

represent a complete system of 

collective security, but rather a balance 

between collective action on the one 

hand and continued operation of the 

state’s system (including the continued 

special roles of great powers) on the 

other (Kegely and Wittkopf, 2001:559). 

 

This is one theory that explains the use 

of international forces through the ambit 

of the United Nations and other 

International Governmental 

Organizations (IGOs). It is a security 

regime created by the great powers that 

set rules for keeping peace. The theory is 

guided by the principles that an act of 

aggression by any state or group of states 

will be met by a collective response from 

the other states. It stipulates that 

effective collective measures would be 

taken to assist any state under aggression 

by another member or group of states. 

Collective security is based on some 

basic tenets. The first is that all states 

would avoid the use of force except in 

self defence. The second rest on the 

general agreement that peace is 

indivisible, while, the third is the pledge 

by all states (or members of the IGO) to 

unite against aggression and restore the 

peace. Indeed, members must keep their 

alliance and commitments to the group 

and agree on what constitutes 

aggression. Lastly, they also must 

pledge to contribute resources (material 

and personnel) to form a collective 

security force to fight the aggressor(s) 

and restore the peace (Kegely and 

Wittkopf, 2001:559). 

 

Collective security appears to exist as 

goal in that its application at the 

international level is limited by 

problems. Most glaring is the 

unwillingness of countries to 

subordinate their sovereign interests. It 

is not often that when a powerful state 

commits aggression against a weaker 

one that other powerful states go to war 

over the issue as it can be quite costly to 

suppress a determined aggressor. This is 

to say that the collective security system 

does not work against aggression by 

great powers. In fact, only the UN’s 



 

 

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intervention in Korea (1950-1953) and 

the Persian Gulf (1990-1991) appear 

close to fulfilling the idea of collective 

security (Kegely and Wittkopf, 

2001:560). 

 

In recent years, the concept of collective 

security has been broadened and by the 

end of the cold war, the liberal premises 

of international community and mutual 

state interests provided the foundation 

for a new idea called common security 

or ‘mutual security’. This is the notion 

that the security of all states is mutually 

interdependent; therefore, the insecurity 

of one state makes all other states 

insecure. This new notion was aimed at 

solving the security dilemma because if 

a state threatened another state, its own 

security interest would be diminished 

(Palme, 1992:28). 

 

Peacekeeping: A Conceptual Analysis 

Peacekeeping generally is an 

intervention by a third party to separate 

and pacify participants in a conflict. The 

United Nations has performed 

peacekeeping operations since 1948, 

when it sent military observers to 

Kashmir, to oversee the ceasefire 

between India and Pakistan, and the 

Middle East, in the aftermath of the 

Arab-Israeli conflict. Fifty years later 

the UN peacekeepers still had presence 

in these regions. The number of UN 

peacekeeping operations has increased 

rapidly since the end of the Cold War, 

with involvement in Somalia, Rwanda, 

the Balkans and Kuwait, amongst others. 

Peacekeeping has tended to involve the 

introduction of the military, which have 

the job of observing the implementation 

of ceasefire agreements and providing a 

buffer between combatants. There has 

been debate as to the extent to which 

peacekeeping forces could or should be 

involved in the active enforcement of 

ceasefires, the possibility and 

practicality of neutral intervention, and 

the balance between upholding the status 

quo and acting to change the strategic 

situation in order to enhance the 

prospects of conflict resolution (McLean 

and McMillan, 2003:400). 

 

Of the issues the United Nations 

confronts, none is as vexing as peace and 

security. During the Cold War, the 

structure of the Security Council 

(requiring unanimity among the five 

permanent members) prevented the 

United Nations from playing a major 

role in issues directly affecting those 

members. A new approach labeled 

peacekeeping evolved as a way of 

limiting the scope of a conflict and 

preventing it from escalating into a full 

scale war or military struggle or 

confrontation. Peacekeeping operation 

fall into two types, or generations. In 

first-generation peacekeeping, 

multilateral institutions such as the UN 

seek to contain conflicts between two 

states through third-party military 

forces. Ad hoc military units, drawn 

from the armed forces of non-permanent 

members of the UN Security Council 

(often small, neutral members), have 

been used to prevent the escalation of 

conflicts and to keep the warring parties 

apart until the dispute can be settled. 

These troops operate under UN 



 

 

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auspices, supervising armistices, trying 

to maintain ceasefires, and physically 

interposing themselves in a buffer zone 

between warring parties (Mingst, 

2004:172). 

 

In the post-Cold War era, UN 

peacekeeping has expanded to address 

different types of conflicts and takes on 

new responsibilities. Whereas first-

generation activities primarily address 

interstate conflict, second-generation 

peacekeeping activities respond to civil 

war and domestic unrest, much of it 

stemming from the rise of ethno-

nationalism. To deal with these new 

conflicts, second-generation 

peacekeepers have taken on a range of 

both military and nonmilitary functions. 

Militarily, they have aided in the 

verification of troop withdrawal such as 

the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from 

Afghanistan, and have separated warring 

factions until underlying issues could be 

settled as was the case with Bosnia. 

Sometimes, resolving underlying issues 

has meant organizing and running 

national elections, as were the cases in 

Cambodia and Namibia; sometimes it 

has involved implementing human 

rights agreements as was the case in 

Central America. At other times UN 

peacekeepers have tried to maintain law 

and order in falling or disintegrating 

societies by aiding in civil 

administration, policing, and 

rehabilitating infrastructure, as in 

Somalia. Peacekeepers have equally 

provided humanitarian aid, supplying 

food, medicine, and a secure 

environment in part of an expanded 

version of human rights, as followed in 

several missions in Africa (Mingst, 

2004:173). 

 

Peacekeeping was originally an 

operation that involves military 

personnel but over the years, modern 

peacekeeping has now evolved to a point 

where economic, political and social 

issues are involved. Accordingly, this 

new trend is popularly described as 

peace support operations (PSOs), an 

expression used to describe the total 

gamut of plans, policies and actions 

geared operations towards preventing, 

managing operations and resolving 

conflict as well as restoring and 

maintaining peace in a conflict 

environment. PSOs began with military 

observation (or observer mission) and 

were later expanded to cover every facet 

of peacekeeping (Gbor, 2003:12). 

 

There is also the concept of 

peacemaking which is the first sequence 

for finding peaceful solutions to 

international conflicts. Peacemaking in 

diplomatic parlance means achieving a 

truce or ending hostilities. It is the 

process of diplomacy, mediation, 

negotiation or other forms of peaceful 

settlement that arranges and ends 

disputes. Peacemaking is aimed at 

resolving issues that led to conflicts. 

Equally, there is the concept of peace 

enforcement which was elaborated by 

the former UN Secretary General 

Boutros Ghali (1992:12) which he said 

unlike traditional peacekeeping 

operations involves the use of force 

under the aegis of the international 



 

 

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organization to deal with the aggressor. 

Peace enforcement is thus the 

application of military force or the threat 

of its use to compel compliance with 

resolutions and sanctions aimed at 

maintaining or restoring peace and 

order. The stage for peace enforcement 

operations was set by his bold ‘agenda 

for peace’ where he proposed the 

creation of standing UN “Peace 

Enforcement Force” mandated to take 

coercive action against belligerents to 

enforce a ceasefire if either party 

violates it. 

 

Peace building remains another concept 

in the series of peacekeeping and 

involves the creation of conditions that 

make war unlikely. These are 

predominantly post conflict actions, 

diplomatic and economic actions that 

strengthen and rebuild governmental 

infrastructure and institutions such that 

the recourse to armed hostilities is 

avoided. Peace building is also a positive 

continuous cooperative human 

endeavour which builds bridges between 

belligerents that enhances understanding 

and communication. Inspired by the 

liberal principle that improving the 

quality of peoples’ lives can reduce the 

need for military arsenals, the UN is 

increasingly involved in managing 

ethnic warring parties, human rights 

violations, forced migration, world 

hunger, political instability, 

humanitarian needs, the equality of 

women, protection of children and a host 

of other world problems that influence 

the quality of life and serve as potential 

wellsprings for aggression (United 

Nations, 1992:4). 

 

UN peacekeeping has had successes and 

failures, as illustrated by the two African 

cases of Namibia and Rwanda. Namibia 

(formerly South-West Africa), a former 

Germany colony, was administered by 

South Africa following the end of World 

War 1. Over the years, pressure was 

exerted on South Africa to relinquish 

control of the territory and grant 

Namibia independence. Though the 

process of disengagement was tough 

because South Africa refused to consider 

change, citing security concerns, as long 

as Soviet-backed Cuban troops occupied 

neighbouring Angola, the UN Transition 

Assistance Group in Namibia (UNTAG) 

played a vital role in managing the move 

from war to ceasefire and then to 

independence. The operation in Namibia 

became the model for UN peacekeeping 

in Cambodia in the early 1990s and in 

East Timor in the late 1990s ((Mingst 

and Karns, 2000:24). 

 

But not all UN peacekeeping operations 

have been successful. Rwanda is an 

example of where a limited UN 

peacekeeping force proved to be 

insufficient and where genocide 

subsequently escalated as the 

international community watched and 

did nothing. Rwanda and neighbouring 

Burundi have seen periodic outbreaks of 

devastating ethnic violence between 

Hutus and Tutsis since 1960s. The trend 

of conflict continued despite the 1993 

peace agreement that called for a UN 

force (the UN Assistance Mission in 



 

 

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Rwanda, UNAMIR) to monitor the 

ceasefire. Large-scale violence was to 

erupt less than a year later, following the 

death of the Rwandan President in a 

plane crash, with Hutu extremists in the 

Rwandan military and police 

slaughtering minority Tutsis, resulting 

in 750,000 Tutsi deaths in a ten-week 

period. UNAMIR was not equipped to 

handle the crisis, and despite its 

commander’s call for more troops, the 

UN Security Council failed to respond 

until it was too late. Eventually, 

UNAMIR did establish a humanitarian 

protection zone and provided security 

relief- supply depots and escorts for aid 

convoys while its personnel performed 

reconstruction tasks. But the mission is 

clouded by its initial failure (Mingst and 

Karns, 2000:24). 

 

The Evolution of the United Nations 

Peacekeeping Mission in Africa 

The level of development of African 

states and their incapacity to effectively 

manage and resolve conflicts amongst 

themselves is largely responsible for 

their eliciting for external interventions 

in their crises. Following the excellent 

performance of Nigerian led ECOMOG 

Peacekeeping Forces in stabilizing and 

restoring peace, law and order in Liberia 

between 1990 and 1997 which led 

Liberians in gratitude to God to coin the 

cliche “thank God for ECOMOG, the 

involvement of African states in 

peacekeeping operations have known no 

bounds. In fact, this singular expression 

by Liberians tells volumes about the 

relevance and positive impact of 

peacekeeping missions globally (Basu, 

2009:76). 

 

Prior to the emergence of the United 

Nations in 1945, there were no previous 

practices of peacekeeping. The world 

powers had other methods of trying to 

maintain international peace and 

security. These methods were however 

localized to regions and carried out by a 

collection of few powerful nations and 

their Kings mainly on ad hoc basis. For 

example, the concert of Europe as well 

as the League of Nations helped in no 

small measure to enforce peaceful co-

existence amongst nations. These ad hoc 

measures did not however do much to 

maintain world peace and security, and 

was proven by the outbreak of the First 

World War between 1914-1918. At the 

end of this war, the League of Nations 

was established as mankind’s first 

attempt to internationalize the 

mechanism for maintaining world peace 

and security. The league had the 

principle of unanimity to guide and 

determine its actions against aggressors. 

This principle crippled the league as it 

could not control the aggressive 

tendencies of its ambitious members 

especially Germany. This inability of the 

league to tame aggressors in its rank 

paved way for the Second World War in 

1939-1945 (Vogt and Ekoko 1993:78). 

 

It was after this war in 1945 that the 

victorious powers (USA, USSR, France 

and Britain) established the United 

Nations Organization to save succeeding 

generations from the scourge of war and 

to ensure by the acceptance of principles 



 

 

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and the institution of methods that armed 

force shall not be used save in the 

common interest (UN Charter, 1945). 

With these solemn words, the UN took 

up as its primary objective and 

responsibility “to maintain international 

peace and security” (UN Charter, 1945). 

The strategy for pursuing and achieving 

this objective was collective security 

enforcement action as enshrined in 

Chapters VI and VII of its charter and 

specifically in Articles 41 and 42. 

However, the powers of the UN in this 

direction begins in Article 39 which 

empowers the UN Security Council to 

assess threats to international peace and 

security while Article 40 enables the 

Security Council to commence the 

processes of intervention which may be 

preventive diplomacy as a first step. 

Article 41 specifically empowers the 

Security Council to impose sanctions 

against an aggressor by empowering the 

Security Council to: 

take such action by air, sea or land 

forces as may be necessary to 

maintain or restore international 

peace and security. Such actions 

may include demonstrations, 

blockades, and other operations by 

air, sea, or land forces of members 

of the United Nations” (UN 

Charter,1945). 

 

The collective security principle means 

that when a UN member fails in its treaty 

obligations to settle disputes with other 

members peacefully and opts instead for 

the use of force, the UN as a body will 

invoke its charter provisions and take 

military action against that member 

state. But no sooner had the UN charter 

came into effect that the cold war began 

between the US and defunct USSR 

which were then the two super-powers 

in the world. This cold war frustrated the 

application of the principle of collective 

security in which the permanent 

members of the Security Council had to 

block any military action by the UN 

against themselves and their allies. The 

UN therefore decided to embark on 

peacekeeping method as an alternative 

strategy for maintaining international 

peace and security; and the use of troops 

contributed by its members (Basu, 

2009:77). 

 

The UN mounted its first peace mission, 

the United Nations Truce Supervision 

Organization (UNTSO) in Palestine in 

1948. UNTSO comprised of unarmed 

military observers deployed to supervise 

the truce during the first Arab-Israeli 

war of 1948. Then in 1956, the UN 

deployed its first armed peacekeeping 

force, the United Nations Emergency 

Force (UNEF) to the Suez Canal to 

interpose between Egypt and Israel 

during the Suez Canal conflict which led 

to the occupation of the Canal by French 

and British military forces. In 1960, 

following the Congo crisis, the UN 

deployed armed peacekeepers to the 

country and to suppress the secessionist 

bid of the Katanga Province under 

Moise Tsombe, the UN forces had to 

carry out peace enforcement in order to 

preserve the territorial integrity of the 

Congo. Thus, between 1948 and 1964, 

the UN had deployed peace missions 

that carried out unarmed observer 



 

 

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mission, armed peacekeeping and peace 

enforcement (Vogt and Ekoko, 

1991:53). 

 

As the years rolled by, and conflicts got 

more destructive and bitter, the UN 

introduced other methods like election 

conduct and supervision, reconstruction 

of infrastructure, temporary 

administration of states in conflict, 

mediation between belligerents, 

rehabilitation of social services like 

health and education among others. New 

concepts arose to describe these various 

new methods such as confidence 

building, peace building, peacemaking 

etc. All these now constitute what is 

regarded as peace support operations. It 

is a new concept which grew out of 

peacekeeping operations of the UN. 

Although the concept of peacekeeping 

began under the UN and metamorphosed 

into peace support operations, such 

measures aimed at maintaining 

international peace and security have not 

stopped at the world level of the UN 

because the UN charter made provisions 

for regional and bilateral arrangements 

(Vogt and Ekoko, 1991:53). In fact, 

Article 32 of the charter states inter alia: 

“Nothing in the present charter 

precludes the existence of regional 

arrangements or agencies from 

dealing with such matters relating 

to the maintenance of international 

peace and security as are 

appropriate for regional action, 

provided that such arrangements or 

agencies and their activities are 

consistent with the purposes and 

principles of the United Nations” 

(UN Charter, 1945). 

 

The Department of Peacekeeping 

Operations (DPKO) has clearly spelt 

out the task of any peacekeeping 

mission as: 

1. Deploy to prevent the outbreak of 

conflict or spillover of conflict 

across borders. 

2. Stabilize conflict situations after a 

ceasefire to create an environment 

for parties to reach a lasting 

agreement. 

3. Assist in implementing 

comprehensive peace agreement 

4. Lead states or territories through a 

transition to stable government 

based on democratic principles, 

good governance and economic 

development (Oguntomisin, 

2004:33). 

 

From the above, one can conclude that 

whatever the concept of peacekeeping 

and its transformation are, the mission 

mandate of any peacekeeping operation 

whether those with direct military 

activity or non-military activity, 

enforcement of outright intervention or 

mere physical presence of UN force to 

mitigate conflict, they all come under 

peacekeeping operations. Therefore, 

peacekeeping has to be with the consent 

of conflict-affected states. It must be 

under the mandate of the UN or with the 

authorization of the UN for a state actor 

or regional body to undertake any 

peacekeeping operation as was the case 

with ECOMOG in Liberia. The UN has 

been in the business of preventing wars 



 

 

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and alleviating human suffering for the 

past 60 years and significant numbers of 

these efforts are in Africa. UN 

peacekeeping in Africa out-number 

peacekeeping operations in any other 

continents of the world. It has 

undertaken the following peacekeeping 

operations in Africa: 

i. United Nations Mission in 

Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) 

ii. United Nations Observer 

Mission in Angola (MONUA) 

iii. United Nations Angola 

Verification Mission 111 

(UNAVEM111) 

iv. United Nations Angola 

Verification Mission 11 

(UNAVEM11) 

v. United Nations Angola 

Verification Mission 1 

(UNAVEM1) 

vi. United Nations Operation in 

Burundi (ONUB) 

vii. United Nations Operations in 

Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI) 

viii. (viii) United Nations Mission in 

Central African Republic 

(MINURCA) 

ix. United Nations Aouzou 

Observer Group (UNASOG) 

x. United Nations Operation the 

Congo (ONUC) 

xi. United Nations Operation 

Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) 

xii. United Nations Transition 

Assistance Group (UNTAG) 

xiii. (xiii) United Nations Assistance 

Mission for Rwanda 

(UNAMIR) 

xiv. United Nations Observer 

Mission Uganda-Rwanda 

(UNOMUR) 

xv. United Nations Observer 

Mission in Sierra Leone 

(UNAMSIL) 

xvi. United Nations Operation in 

Somalia 1(UNISOM 1) 

xvii. (xvii) United Nations Operation 

in Somalia 11 (UNISOM 11) 

xviii. (xviii) United Nations Mission 

in the Central African Republic 

and Chad (MINURCAT) 

xix. African Union-UN Hybrid 

Operation in Darfur 

(UNAMID) 

xx. United Nations Mission in 

Liberia (UNMIL) 

xxi. United Nations Organization 

Mission in the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo 

(MONUC) 

xxii. (xxii) United Nations Mission 

for the referendum in Western 

Sahara (MINURSO) 

(www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/

info/mission). 

 

In Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, 

Ethiopia, Rwanda and Senegal provide 

most of the uniformed personnel in the 

last seven UN peacekeeping operations 

in Africa. UN peacekeeping remain 

primarily one of the strategic 

instruments for preventing wars and 

alleviating the suffering of war-affected 

persons in Africa. Due to the complex 

nature of current wars, the UN is 

increasingly utilizing regional and sub-

regional governmental groupings in 

Africa for the purpose of peacekeeping 

(Oguntomisin, 2004:34). 

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The Challenges of UN Peacekeeping 

Missions in Africa 

The UN peacekeeping has no doubt 

gained prominence as an instrument of 

providing hope of peace for the people 

and governments of African States. 

However, the organization has suffered 

fundamental flaws arising from some 

challenges its operations have faced and 

are yet facing in the African continent, 

especially in Sudan, our case study as 

well as in Somalia, Rwanda, Democratic 

Republic of Congo (DRC), and Chad 

among others. These challenges is what 

this section of our study intends to 

address. 

 

The first challenge faced by the 

operations in Sudan is the exponential 

rise in the number of UN peacekeeping 

missions in Africa. In recent times, the 

number of UN peacekeeping operation 

has witnessed unprecedented sharp rise 

beyond the expectation of actors in the 

international system including the UN 

itself. This sheer volume and growth of 

peacekeeping has put the UN and its 

mission under intense constraints in the 

continent, a development which affects 

its operations in these countries as the 

number of personnel needed for 

peacekeeping operations has been 

drastically reduced by the fact of their 

spread to conflict spots in Africa. 

 

In less than seven years, the UN has 

launched eight missions in rapid 

succession. In fact, currently there are 

about seven peacekeeping missions in 

Africa alone and as at 2003, the UN had 

about 36,000 uniformed personnel 

deployed around the world including 

Sudan although the number has risen to 

about 100,000 (Rice, 2007:33). Due to 

the rise in conflict spots in Africa, it has 

been difficult for the UN to generate, 

recruit and deploy the number of 

personnel required for these operations. 

Thus, the peacekeeping operations in 

Africa have been suffering from 

personnel deficit which obviously 

affects their operations negatively. The 

rise exponentially in peacekeeping 

missions also affects the cost and 

equipment for operations. This has 

rightly been observed by Susan Rice 

(2007:30) when she stated that: 

The 2000 reforms did not 

anticipate that nine years later, UN 

peacekeeping operation would 

operate a fleet of 270 aircrafts and 

17,350 vehicles, consume 1.75 

million dollars litres of fuel and 11 

million litres of water every day, or 

more than 17,000 procurement 

transactions valued at some 1.4 

billion dollars in 2008 alone. 

 

Regrettably, UN peacekeeping missions 

in Africa suffer the most in comparative 

terms to other missions in other 

continents because of the strain arising 

from the rise in the numbers of 

peacekeeping around the world. 

 

The next challenge is the lack of 

cooperation from African governments 

and their seeming hypocrisy in dealing 

with UN mission. This challenge is not 

only peculiar to Africa but extends to 

other missions all over the world. The 

United Nations Mission in Sudan 



 

 

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(UNMIS) has directly faced this 

challenge because of the Sudanese 

government’s unwillingness to 

cooperate with the UN mission. UNMIS 

was established to assist in the 

implementation of the Comprehensive 

Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended 

long years of war between North and 

South Sudan. After five years, the 

implementation of the CPA remained 

incomplete and at a precarious stage as 

parties continued to disagree over issues 

of power sharing, wealth distribution, 

and boundaries setting. UNMIS 

continue to depend on key international 

and regional actors to encourage the 

parties to abide by their commitments 

and address outstanding issues that 

could have grave implications for the 

future of Sudan (Alan, 2009:11). 

 

Repeatedly, the government of Sudan 

had failed to cooperate with UN 

peacekeepers and other humanitarian 

workers by denying them freedom of 

movement and access, refusing visas for 

needed personnel and at times blocking 

the delivery of logistic support for the 

success of UN mission. Provision of key 

supplies to UNMIS had equally been 

difficult as Sudan has a single port, Port 

Sudan, on the other side of the country 

from the UN mission’s headquarters in 

El-Fasher. MINURCAT Chad also faced 

similar challenge of troop shortfall and 

logistics as the mission functioned from 

remote locations and was deployed at 46 

percent, with European Union forces 

bridging the gap; while the, MONUC in 

the Democratic Republic of Congo 

(DRC) has not fully attained its target 

deployment as authorized by the UN 

Security Council (Rice, 2007:31). 

 

Closely following the above is the 

challenge of over ambitious and at times 

ambiguous mandates from the UN 

Security Council. With the nature of 

conflicts in the international system, 

particularly, its frequency and 

recurrence, and the UN as the only 

global body charged with the 

responsibility for international peace 

and security. The UN has found itself in 

a situation where it is being asked to take 

on harder, riskier and ambiguous 

mandates that their success levels are 

immeasurable. Member states of the UN 

especially the Five Permanent Members 

(P5) of the Security Council are often 

quick to rush the UN into peacekeeping 

mission without necessary support and 

capabilities it needs from the members. 

Recently, the Security Council gave a 

very ambitious mandate to peacekeeping 

operations in Africa, such as protecting 

civilians under threat of physical 

violence, including sexual violence in 

vast and populous territories with 

limited infrastructure, faltering peace 

processes, and ongoing hostilities 

(Galadima, 2008:11). 

 

As observed by Galadima (2008:11), 

mandates for peace support operations 

are not usually clear, realistic and 

practicable and do not provide for the 

necessary means for implementation. A 

confusing mandate he maintained, 

would only lead to confusion with 

nothing coming out of it. The initial UN 

operations in Somalia, Sierra Leone and 



 

 

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Liberia suffered mandate confusion just 

like Sudan as peacekeepers were 

equipped originally for traditional 

peacekeeping only to later realize that 

the operation was primarily to first 

enforce the peace among the warring 

parties. 

 

The next challenge is that of internal UN 

politics and its negative impacts on 

mobilization, deployment and 

operations of UN peacekeepers. Here it 

is discovered that the UN is the single 

largest organization with a collection of 

sovereign states as its members all with 

their different political, socio-cultural 

UN, national and ideological interests 

are seriously taken into consideration. 

Consequently, before resolutions are 

reached in the world body either at the 

General Assembly or the Security 

Council, members often consider several 

factors, particularly those that directly or 

indirectly affect their national interest. 

As such, whenever a state in Africa is 

experiencing conflict that requires 

immediate deployment of UN 

peacekeepers to avert humanitarian 

disaster or complete erosion of state 

authority, member states deal with such 

matter as a normal game of international 

politics. This manifested in the Security 

Council’s resolution for UNMIS as it 

suffered several hurdles because of 

China’s insistence on the removal of 

some clauses in the resolution before it 

could assent. In addition, internal 

politics in the UN prior to declaring and 

passing a peacekeeping resolution, 

causes delay which impacts negatively 

in the mobilization, deployment and 

operations of peacekeepers. This was 

glaring in the attempt to assemble UN 

troops for UNMIS (Abubakar, 2009: 

43). 

 

There is also the problem of culture and 

language for UN peacekeepers in Africa. 

Here cultural and language differences 

do pose severe challenge to UN 

peacekeeping operations not only in 

Africa but in other continents where they 

are deployed. This issue of cultural and 

language differences became an 

obstruction to peacekeeping operation in 

Sudan as members of the troop failed to 

understand the prevalent language and 

culture in that country, a development 

which led to operational delays and 

other bottlenecks. Similarly, in the case 

of Somalia, Tamara Duffey (2000:142) 

argues that, while the multiplicity of 

troop-contributing countries and the 

disparate organizational cultures of the 

military and civilian components 

produced some obstruction to UN 

peacekeeping there, the most significant 

problems were those resulting from the 

failure to understand Somali culture. 

According to him, there was lack of 

cultural understanding from the highest 

level of decision-making at the UN to 

the troops deployed to Somalia, as many 

contingents arrived in the area without 

knowledge of Somalia, its history, 

culture and the conditions on ground. 

 

Thus, peacekeeping needs to be culture-

sensitive for it to be widely acceptable 

by the people it was meant to serve. 

 



 

 

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The next challenge is that of 

unconventional warfare and rules of 

engagement. Nearly all theatres of 

conflict in Africa are characterized or 

engaged in non-conventional or 

asymmetric warfare. As observed by 

Galadima (2008:10), asymmetric 

warfare operations typically include a 

variety of attacks on transportation 

routes, individual groups of police or 

military installations and structures, 

economic enterprises and targeted 

civilians. Attacking in small groups, 

using camouflage and often captured 

weapons of the enemy, the guerrilla 

force constantly put pressure on its foes 

and diminishes its numbers, while 

allowing escape with relatively few 

causalities. To him, the aim of such 

attacks is not only military but political 

aiming to demoralize target populations 

or governments, or goading an 

overreaction that forces the population 

to take sides for or against the guerrillas. 

 

He concluded that with this kind of 

warfare, the theatre and actors of conflict 

are ill-defined and the method 

unconventional, a development which 

makes it difficult for UN peacekeepers 

to achieve results especially when their 

rules of engagement are not as clearly 

defined as that of a “fighting force”. 

Often times, UN peacekeepers have 

found themselves being ambushed by 

rebel forces. This situation applied 

seriously to Sudan and led to Nigeria’s 

loss of seven members of her troops in 

UNMIS to rebel ambush who opened 

fire on them while on patrol and injuring 

others. In fact, the Sudanese case was 

aided by the inability of the 

peacekeepers to distinguish between 

combatants and noncombatants, 

especially as rebel groups do not wear 

uniforms and often use women and 

children for cover or shield. 

 

Following the above closely is the 

challenge of inadequate intelligence 

prior and during peace operations. Here, 

while the UN system has the tentacles of 

its development agencies in nearly all 

member states, it hardly used these 

advantages to source vital information 

that will be useful in times of likely UN 

peacekeeping intervention. The UN, 

perhaps, because it is not a direct state 

actor in the international system, as a 

result has no interest in intelligence 

gathering on member states particularly 

vulnerable states in Africa. This 

development played out in Sudan as the 

lack of information on that country 

contributed to the troops spending more 

time to restore peace and to bring the 

conflict to an end. UN peacekeeping 

operations in Africa have suffered dearly 

from its inability to gather adequate 

intelligence before and during 

operations. The world body has tended 

to underestimate intelligence 

particularly military-security 

intelligence of conflict areas before the 

deployment of peacekeepers, and even 

when they are deployed, much attention 

is not paid to such intelligence need 

(Abubakar, 2009:44). 

 

The next challenge remains that of 

warlords and the inability of UN 

peacekeepers to deal with peace- 



 

 

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spoilers. The activities of acclaimed 

warlords in African conflict 

environment have gained prominence 

with the UN system and international 

community according them so much 

relevance in peace negotiations. It is a 

known fact that these warlords have 

impeded the peace processes and 

committed gross violations of 

international humanitarian law. In fact, 

the activities of John Garang de Mabior 

and Omar al Bashir in Sudan, cannot be 

forgotten in a hurry. Garang held Sudan 

hostage as leader of the rebel Sudan 

People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and 

became Vice President of Sudan 

between July 9, 2005 and July 30, 2005 

when he died in a helicopter crash. The 

continent is also abreast with the 

activities of Sergeant Doe and Charles 

Taylor in Liberia, Foday Sankoh of the 

blood diamond fame in Sierra Leone, 

Germain Katanga and Laurent Nkunda 

in DRC who was accused of taking part 

in the Rwandan Genocide, Callixte 

Mbarushimana in Rwanda equally 

accused of participating in the conflict in 

the DRC, Joseph Kony in Uganda 

among others. Surprisingly, these men 

are usually celebrated and given wider 

press coverage by the international 

press, a development which encourages 

them to continue in the path of human 

right abuses and conflict. 

 

There is equally the challenge of 

logistics for UN peacekeepers in Africa. 

This has direct bearing to UNMIS as 

Manuel Christopher (2005:66) observed 

that the troops that operated in Sudan 

had little or no self-sufficiency in both 

equipment and material supplies. 

Originally, UN standard of operation 

requires contingents from troop 

contributing countries to be self-

sufficient for 60 days, and may require, 

or agree to fund, nationally held in-

theatre stocks for 30 days. As a result, 

contingents are expected to deploy with 

90 days of stock. This does not take into 

account re-supply pipeline time and if, 

for instance, there is a 14-day ordering, 

processing, and pipeline time (order ship 

time) from member nations’ depots, it 

would be prudent for contingents to 

deploy with additional stocks to cover 

this time lag (Galadima, 2008:12). Most 

African troop contributing countries to 

UN peacekeeping missions can hardly 

afford contingents self-sufficiency for 

the first 60 days before main supplies 

begin to flow. 

 

The inability of most UN peacekeeping 

missions to effectively bring peace and 

successfully transit to host governments 

in Africa is yet another challenge. Most 

UN peacekeeping missions in Africa 

hardly complete their mandate to hand 

over to host government without the 

likelihood of a relapse to conflict. Sudan 

and UNMIS paints a vivid picture of this 

contention as the effort of UNMIS 

almost went in futility as Sudan relapsed 

into conflict leading to the deployment 

on the United Nations Mission in Darfur 

(UNAMID) and the subsequent break-

up of the country with the independence 

of South Sudan in 2011. The above is so 

because host government often lack the 

security and rule of law capacities 

needed to take over from the departing 



 

 

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UN peacekeepers and face the danger of 

relapsing into conflict (Rice, 2007:34). 

 

There is also the challenge of civil-

military relations among UN 

peacekeepers in Africa. Military and 

civilian component of UN peacekeeping 

often had different perception of the 

mission and their roles. While the 

military believe that their primary 

responsibility is to secure the 

environment, a military role which 

would indirectly assist humanitarian 

agencies and view the humanitarian 

agencies as having supporting role, the 

UN agencies and NGOs, however, 

believe that their responsibility is 

primary and more expedient, as the 

military is there in a supplemental role, 

to support their humanitarian efforts. 

Because of the ill-defined roles, the 

respective organizational cultures of the 

military and civilian agencies they adopt 

disparate and uncooperative attitudes 

towards each other which strains their 

relationship with a detrimental effect on 

coordination. In fact, it is on this ground 

that the UN established a Civil-Military 

Operation Centre to deal with this 

noticeable lapse. Several joint trainings 

have been organized to close the gap 

between civilians and the military to 

ensure hitch-free and successful 

operations in missions (Christopher, 

2005:67). 

 

Training, doctrine and the problem of 

command and control comes into focus 

as one of the challenges of UN 

peacekeeping in Africa. The UN 

peacekeeping operations consist of a 

multinational force with troops and 

personnel drawn from different 

countries that have different military 

training and doctrine. These differences 

manifest in operation field and impacts 

negatively on the command and control 

of troops in the missions. Command and 

control is a major challenge that reduced 

the UN’s effectiveness because some 

contingents would not work with or 

cooperate with others (Alli, 2012:53). 

 

The misappropriation of the allowances 

of troops serving under the UN mandate 

by their commanding officers is another 

obstacle to UN peacekeeping operations 

in Africa. The UN should therefore 

device a means by which the soldiers get 

their allowances paid directly to them 

into their bank accounts by the UN itself 

instead of their home country 

governments as this will boost the 

morale of soldiers serving under its 

auspices. Instead of looking for 

diamonds and gold or things to loot in 

their areas of operation, the forces would 

concentrate on their primary 

assignments of peacekeeping. The 

misappropriation of the allowances of 

Nigerian soldiers that served in Liberia 

and Senegal under the UN by their 

commanding officers turned out to be 

very bitter for some members of the 

troops that protested over such behavior. 

This Nigerian case led to a protest by the 

soldiers involved in their Akure 

Cantonment and about 28 of them were 

later arrested, court- martialed and 

sentenced for life though the sentence 

was reduced to seven years 

imprisonment and later to a amnesty 



 

 

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(pardoned) and finally to compulsory 

retirement on pardon after about three 

years in jail. This behavior by the 

commanding officers kills the morale of 

soldiers and perhaps leads the 

combatants into immoral acts in their 

areas of operation. There were also 

reports of the commanding officers 

using their men for private enterprises in 

their areas of operation while on peace 

keeping. 

 

Finally, there is the challenge of poor 

infrastructure and difficult operational 

environment which is applicable to all 

African countries where UN 

peacekeeping operation has taken place 

or is ongoing. With these issues 

confronting states in the continent, 

peacekeepers find it extremely difficult 

to patrol and provide security for those 

in the hinterland. In DRC, Liberia, 

Sudan, Darfur, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, 

Burundi, Chad and Central African 

Republic (CAR), there are scanty 

motorable roads, few functioning court 

system, prisons or municipal 

governments while under conflict. The 

lack of these basic governance 

infrastructures impedes UN 

peacekeeping operations in these 

countries and extends the duration of 

conflicts unnecessarily (Alli, 2012:53). 

 

Prospects for UN Peacekeeping in 

Africa 

Having elaborated on the challenges of 

UN peacekeeping in Africa, it is 

pertinent for us at this juncture to look 

into the prospects for successful 

peacekeeping operations in the 

continent. With the prevalence of 

conflicts in Africa, the UN peacekeeping 

has greater prospects in the continent. 

The universal character of the UN and 

the unique legitimacy with which it 

carries out its mandate has given the 

United Nations wide acceptance by 

majority of African people and 

governments. The UN political and 

development tools which it has used 

over the years has reduced any potential 

of UN peacekeepers being perceived as 

occupiers, rather, most Africans in 

conflict-affected states and even their 

governments have always preferred the 

presence of the UN in their countries. 

 

The United Nations as the main 

organization charged with the 

responsibility of maintaining 

international peace and security is 

uniquely able to mount multifaceted 

missions. Drawing from the expertise of 

personnel from member states, the UN 

can pull political, diplomatic, military, 

police, human rights, electoral and 

development activities together under 

the leadership of a single individual that 

is the Special Representative of the 

Secretary General (SPSG) or the Force 

Commander in a mission field. 

 

Although warlords and peace-spoilers 

abound in African conflicts, the UN can 

provide the political and practical 

reassurances warring parties need to 

agree to and implement ceasefires. Their 

deployment can help limit or stop the 

escalation of armed conflict and stave 

off wider wars. UN peacekeeping offers 

millions of people in Africa the prospect 



 

 

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Akwara, Azalahu F.; Akpan, Nse Etim; Ibiam, Egwu Okechukwu;  Arua, Christopher 

 

of a more secure, prosperous, and 

dignified future. With the help of UN 

peacekeeping, war-torn African states 

are able to better provide for their 

citizens and meet international 

obligations, and commitments including 

protecting their borders, policing their 

territories, halting the flow of illicit 

arms, drugs trade and denying sanctuary 

to international terrorist groups and 

transnational organized criminal groups. 

 

In spite of the challenges facing 

peacekeeping in Africa like other 

peacekeeping missions, the UN being 

aware of its limitations has in-built 

mechanism and out-sourced mechanism 

to help check the effectiveness of its 

operations. Realizing that current 

realities tend to overwhelm its 

operations beyond expectation of the 

Brahimi Reform, the UN is coming up 

with a reform agenda particularly on 

peacekeeping operations. It hopes to 

make relevant reforms that will make 

peacekeeping more effective and in tune 

with realities on the ground. 

 

UN Peacekeeping Missions in Africa: 

The Way Forward 

This study recommends the following 

measures to be adopted by the UN if it 

must overcome most of the challenges 

encountered by its peacekeeping 

missions in the African continent: 

(i) That the UN should come up 

with a clear and actionable 

mandate with benchmarks for all 

peacekeeping operations in 

Africa. 

(ii) The UN should improve on the 

quality of preparation, planning, 

monitoring and evaluation of 

operations 

(iii) Adequate information flow 

between the Security Council, 

the Secretariat and troop 

contributing countries should be 

given priority. 

(iv) The UN should ensure an 

effective strategic oversight to 

overcome resource constraints, 

poor documentation and as well 

implement lessons learnt from 

previous operations. 

(v) There should be an improvement 

in the Security Council’s 

military expertise, risk analysis 

and transparency across the 

chain of command. 

 

However, the prospects of UN 

peacekeeping in Africa are dependent on 

human value and its universal 

underpinning. A global body with a 

global mandate must resist selective and 

discriminatory peacekeeping in any 

mission field wherever such operation is 

taking place whether in Europe, Asia, 

Middle East, Pacific or Africa. The UN 

must deal and address expressly the 

fears of some member states. The UN 

and its member states particularly those 

of the North, must ensure that the UN 

maintain the face of a common 

humanity. These they can do by not only 

supporting the UN peacekeeping in 

Africa with only logistics and materials, 

but by contributing their own troops to 

participate in the mission fields in 

Africa. They should also ensure that 

their troops whenever deployed to 



 

 

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ISSN: Print 2811-2717                                                                            https://journal.escetjerps.com 

 
 
 
 
 

 

Africa are subject to a unified common 

command and control of such UN 

operation. 

 

Conclusion 

It has been realized from all of the above 

that most states in Africa are yet to get 

their good governance in place and the 

politics of conflict resolution between 

the different groups and their interests is 

still remote. The continent is likely to be 

experiencing more conflicts as some 

states suffer implosion (internal wars) 

and probably explosion (regional war 

effects) with the prospects of UN 

intervention via peacekeeping. Africa is 

very important to the existential 

relevance of the UN; equally, the UN 

especially with regards to its 

peacekeeping operations in Africa is the 

oxygen that has ensured the survival and 

relevance of several African states. Most 

states in Africa would have been extinct 

by now but for UN peacekeeping. 

 

Despite the challenges, it is glaring that 

with the internal mechanism (self-

check) to identify and address its 

problems on ground, the UN has the 

capacity and ability to right the wrong 

and keep up with the pace of 

peacekeeping operations. As reforms is 

being carried out particularly to ensure 

actionable and measurable 

peacekeeping mission mandates, there is 

hope that these challenges will be 

overcome particularly if this is matched 

with enough material and logistical 

resources. Finally, UN peacekeeping 

must be an equal playing field for 

member states including those 

contributing troops and those providing 

logistics and material support. The 

powerful and rich member states must 

also make commitment to contribute 

their troops to UN peacekeeping 

operations in Africa to reflect the 

common humanity that the UN 

represents. 

 

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