Regional Organizations

As SADC leaders gather in Harare for their annual summit, Zimbabwe’s government rounds up perceived “enemies of the state.”

The split between ECOWAS and the mutinous AES states may be just what the regional body needed. 

Gabon’s transitional government struggles to make the case for readmission into regional and global institutions.   

While Zimbabwe’s ruling party continues its campaign to quash opposition forces post-election, the Southern African Development Community takes a “business as usual” approach.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a regional organization that brings together disparate neighbors to address economic and security issues, but the group’s impact remains limited.

Founded as a loose confederation of states in 1945, the Arab League has struggled to overcome dysfunction and disunity among its members.

The Assad regime and Arab capitals will reap the greatest rewards, but ordinary citizens and certain foreign governments involved in Syria’s war have less to gain.

The resurgence of the M23 rebel group in Eastern Congo increases suffering for civilians and heightens international tensions.    

As the DRC becomes the newest member of the East African Community,  the regional organization confronts multiple challenges in its effort to tackle insecurity in eastern Congo.

Putschists in West Africa should not interpret initial popular support for coups as an indication that citizens no longer desire responsive, accountable governance.

The protests in eSwatini, one of the world’s last absolute monarchies, call renewed attention to the gulf between Southern Africa’s professed principles and the region’s realities.

Benin has been something of a poster child for African democracy following its move away from Marxism–Leninism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. No longer. On paper, Benin is a constitutional democracy conducted according to the rule of law. But since Patrice Talon was elected in 2016, the president has systematically squeezed the substance out of the democratic and constitutional forms, leaving only a shell. Over time, Talon has intimidated or banned the opposition, politicized the security services and the judiciary, and limited the media. Freedom House has charted the downward spiral: between 2019 and 2020 it lost its status as a “free” country. The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a part of the African Union (AU), also publicly criticized the trajectory. Talon's response was to withdraw Benin from the court's jurisdiction. The April 11 presidential elections are a major signpost of the transition to an authoritarian—if weak—state.  Talon banned opposition candidates, the supporters of whom boycotted the election. Turnout was perhaps 26 percent of those eligible to vote. African reaction to the elections is disappointing but not surprising. Election observers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the AU praised the elections as being "calm" and "orderly." Election observers from African organization tend to be loath to criticize elections in African countries. The U.S embassy's official statement after the elections was conventional if hardly hard-hitting. It called on those aggrieved to pursue their claims in the courts not the streets, urged the government to “consult with all stakeholders” on the way forward, and expressed concern about the low turnout. (Benin has been a political ally in the struggle against jihadism in West Africa.) Over time, authoritarian rule is like to promote instability in Benin—as it has elsewhere in Africa. For now, however, Talon appears to have gotten off scot-free. He is not a tyrant in the style of Uganda's Idi Amin or even of Chad's Déby, thereby muting Western criticism. Indeed, he appears to be an example of a new style of African "Big Man" who comes to power without need for a military coup. No longer do military units seize the central bank, the presidential palace, the radio station, and install one of their own as president. Instead, duly elected heads of state gradually erode democratic and constitutional norms. John Magufuli in Tanzania was another example of this approach, and he, too, appeared to be successful until he literally dropped dead. This publication is part of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy.

On April 8, the leaders of Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, and Zimbabwe met with Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi to consider next steps with respect to the crisis in Cabo Delgado. They decided to send a team of experts to the battle zone to make recommendations. The leaders also agreed to meet again in three weeks’ time. The meeting fell under the purview of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a sixteen-member regional bloc. SADC is not moving quickly on this crisis, and, in the past, it has failed to address major regional crises, especially in Zimbabwe. It remains to be seen whether that pattern will be repeated with respect to Mozambique.

Jihadi attacks in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province are accelerating, with heavy fighting breaking out around the town of Palma. In response, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa sent South African troops to evacuate South African nationals. The French oil and gas company Total has evacuated its employees from its Afungi gas facility and suspended construction on a $20 billion project. The Maputo government has, for much of the insurgency, routinely declined international help. But with the jihadi group Ansar al Sunna (ASWJ) increasing in strength, international assistance is now being accepted with greater regularity. Thus far, the Biden administration has sent a special forces detachment to provide counterinsurgency training to Mozambican forces. Portugal and the European Union are offering assistance as well. Maputo has requested military assistance from South Africa, but Ramaphosa declined on the basis that the insurgency is too big for a bilateral response. Meanwhile, the contract with South African private military contractor Dyck Advisory Group will not be renewed. The relevant multilateral security pact in the region is the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which will meet on Thursday to discuss the situation in northern Mozambique but apparently lacks the necessary funding to provide significant assistance. Further potential outside financial assistance from the European Union, South Africa, or the United States should not be ruled out, though it is unclear at present what the method of providing such assistance would be. SADC has not been particularly successful at conflict resolution and donors may well seek a different vehicle for providing their assistance.