The challenges facing mediation in Africa

The African Union (AU) and most of the regional organisations on the continent have a mandate to engage in mediation and other forms of peacemaking.2 In practice these organisations and their member states, at times with the support of the UN, non-governmental bodies and international bilateral partners, have undertaken mediation in many countries, including Burundi, Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. The success or failure of these efforts is clearly a matter of great importance, especially where large numbers of people are killed, injured and displaced, where conflict leads to massive plunder and the dismantling of the state, and where it destabilises neighbouring countries.