An uneasy nexus: development, security and the EU’s African Peace Facility

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the European Union has promoted, more explicitly than in earlier decades, the view that security and development policies are inextricably linked. Yet, trying to dismantle the walls erected around the two policy domains has proved very difficult. The launch and implementation of the African Peace Facility (APF), meant to support the African Union in the promotion of security in Africa, exemplifies some of these tensions. While existing analyses have emphasized the role of interests - in a sort of accidental convergence of the bureaucratic interest of the European Commission and those of the Member States - this article concentrates on the normative aspects of the initiative. In particular, the three principles underpinning it - promotion of ownership, solidarity, and a virtuous development-security nexus - make the APF different from any other EU security initiative. Whilst boosting the AU's clout in the field of peace and security and as an actor in the international arena, the implementation of the APF has nonetheless presented some problems. First, a larger number of resources have been devoted to the peace missions than to capacity building. Second, its alleged success has diverted attention from other important areas in EU-Africa relations. Finally, the EU's rhetoric on the Africanization of security, paradoxically, has risked undermining the legitimacy of the African Union in Africa