African Peace and Security Architecture

<p>In recent years global players such as the United States the European Union (EU) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) have noted Africa's growing strategic importance to their respective interests. Among those interests is the increasing importance of Africa's natural resources particularly oil agricultural raw materials and mineral resources but also growing concerns over other peace and security threats such as conflicts terrorism cross-border crimes cyber threats or piracy. African Union (AU) Member States are developing an African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) to address all these types of threats. This study is a descriptive study in the realm of strategy focused on creating a holistic and meaningful picture about the mechanisms and purpose of the APSA. The overall intent of this study is to analyze the mechanisms developed or in a developing stage by the AU and regional organizations to address peace and security issues in the Africa with the ultimate goal of contributing to a better understanding of African security context at the strategic level. By using the strategic model of Ends-Ways-Means this study concluded that the APSA is a viable security strategy to deal with the principal threats in Africa. However there are still important shortcomings and its effectiveness is dependent upon three critical ingredients: political will of AU Member States developments at the regional level and by addressing the external threats much more consistently covering the security dimension of the APSA in the same extent of its peace dimension.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>