Southern Africa’s conflict & governance template

On the one hand, southern Africa is one of the least violent regions in Africa from the standpoint of inter-state and intra-state war. On the other, southern Africa faces major human security and governance challenges that are eroding the region’s hard-won governance and stability gains. The region faces major human security threats; inequality and poverty are on the rise, and these factors make for prospects for serious social dislocation and conflict. Former OAU Secretary-General, Salim Ahmed Salim said about southern Africa ‘…the region has experienced large-scale insecurity…This insecurity persists because the region has not yet managed effectively, human security challenges such as threats to civilians’ livelihoods, pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, poverty, natural disasters, conflict in the DRC and Angola, trafficking of drugs and arms, and cross-border crime’1. Human security threats such as drug and arms, the flows of refugees and migrants, have indeed been regionalized in southern Africa. Southern Africa’s political, development and security realities remain at once intertwined, contradictory and in a state of flux; its politics is unstable and development is under severe stress. Democratization in the region is inconsistent and fragile. While more of the region’s states than ever before can be classified as formal democracies – in the sense that they adhere to the minimum requirement of democracy such as holding elections – the substance of democracy is far more unsteady. Typically, southern Africa states fair well on the minimum threshold of formal or procedural democracy – elections on time, distinction between three spheres of government, the separation of powers (between the legislature, judiciary and government), and opposition parties. But the region is fairing poorly when it comes to the strengthening of substantive democracy – the ability of states to be responsive to the needs of the citizenry, eradicate poverty, ensure the effective participation of the citizenry in decision-making and governance, tackling social injustice challenges such land dispossession and economic injustice’. The gender relations of power typically receive scant attention in southern Africa; yet it is a key governance question in the sub-continent. The sub-region has a long way to go in introducing genuine empowerment of women; this is typically a male-dominated environment. The vexed question of youth and youth participation in politics in the region needs to receive similar attention. Youth are increasingly being alienated and marginalized from mainstream African politics. The issues just do not speak to them. For example, the issues of activism and cross-border youth political organization would help to shed light on the challenges of democratization and political governance in southern Africa