Canada in the World: Canadian International Policy

Video Interview Adekeye Adebajo Subscribe to eNewsletter and/or Email Alerts and Podcasts

Introduction and Peacekeeping	2 min 33 sec	Windows Media | QuickTime
UN Reform	2 min 56 sec	Windows Media | QuickTime
HIV and Security	3 min 09 sec	Windows Media | QuickTime
Canada's Role	2 min 53 sec	Windows Media | QuickTime
Resource consumption	1 min 59 sec	Windows Media | QuickTime

Introduction and Peacekeeping 

My name is Adekye Adebajo. I am a Nigerian citizen and I work for a South African NGO called the Centre for Conflict Resolution. The centre is based in South Africa, and it has been around since 1968. At the moment what we do is conflict resolution training, mostly in the Western Cape, which is where we’re located, in southern Africa, and we also do research on a variety of important African issues, namely the United Nations, the African Union and NEPAD, HIV/AIDS and security, and South Africa’s regional role in the rest of Africa.

I think the security architecture in Africa to some extent has to reflect the reality of the weakness of subregional organizations and the African Union in Africa. The other point I would make is that the UN has primary responsibility for peace and security in Africa, and so it’s somewhat unfair to expect that the Africans are going to carry the burden of peacekeeping. It’s an international responsibility. Recently 31 percent of all peacekeepers, worldwide, are African peacekeepers. So Africa contributes its share to peacekeeping around the world. There’s no reason why others shouldn’t contribute to Africa.

What I would argue is that peacekeeping in Africa should be under the UN’s control and command -- for reasons of legitimacy, because the UN is the only universal organization in the world, and regional organizations tend to be perceived as having parochial interests when they intervene; for reasons of logistics and also finance, which the UN has far more of, as well as peacekeeping experience, than the African regional organizations. And I think that is the current reality anyway. Over 85 percent of UN peacekeepers in the world are in Africa, and over half of all UN peacekeeping missions in the world are in Africa.

UN Reform 

UN reform is effectively dead. UN reform died in September 2005, when some of the most important issues from the reform proposals -- or example, restructuring the Security Council to make it more democratic by increasing the numbers from 15 to about 25; trying to pass legislation or trying to at least promote fairer trade; debt forgiveness; and making sure that aid commitments of 0.7 percent of GDP are lived up to by the rich countries -- a lot of those things also got defeated in the UN reform process.

In terms of the Millennium Development Goals, which set out to halve poverty in all countries in the world by 2015, it’s very clear that many countries -- and particularly most countries in Africa -- will not reach that goal. So it’s been a very disappointing process from the point of view of Africa.

There are three potential successes that came out of the UN reform process. The first is the Responsibility to Protect, which Canada championed quite strongly, and the idea that the international community has a duty, above sovereignty, to protect people from regimes that abuse their own people. It’s a positive step forward, but that’s all it is, just a step, because there aren’t any mechanisms to operationalize it. The second main potential success of the UN reform process, or outcome, is the idea of a Human Rights Council. But nobody really believes that that’s going to stop human rights abuses, and there is a strong feeling, particularly in Africa, that this is an agenda pushed by the U.S., very parochially, to make sure that countries like Sudan, Cuba and Libya do not get onto the Council. And the third issue is the issue of the Peacebuilding Commission that can help mobilize resources for post-conflict reconstruction in places like Sierra Leone, Burundi and Liberia. But the scepticism in Africa is that based on past experiences there is no reason to believe that the mere establishment of an institution like the Peacebuilding Commission will actually make sure that donors fulfill their pledges and are more generous.

HIV and Security

HIV/AIDS and security has two dimensions. One is military security and the other is human security. In terms of military security, we have situations where there are armies in Africa that have infection rates of 23 percent to 50 percent. These are the estimates that are often cited, and obviously that has major implications for deploying peacekeepers. If an army has a quarter or half of its troops unable to be deployed, then that has serious implications for Africa’s ability to maintain its own peace. So that’s the military side of things, and there is a lot of work that has started now on the continent in terms of armies trying to develop a comparative advantage in prevention, treatment and management programs and also to share those experiences.

I think the second dimension of HIV/AIDS is human security, which is the fact that if you have large numbers of your most productive and most educated members of society succumbing to HIV/AIDS, it’s clearly going to have an effect on productivity and how a society works, how effective it can be. If a society loses too many nurses or too many teachers, then there are obviously implications that are security implications. So those are the two key dimensions, I would say.

If current rates continue, then there are very serious implications. It has been estimated by UNAIDS that 75 percent of all infections last year were on the African continent. So the long-term implications of all of this are quite worrying. But there are some countries -- like Uganda, Botswana and Senegal -- that have tried to tackle the disease and in some cases have been able to reverse the numbers. So I wouldn’t say it’s irreversible, but there really does need to be a maintaining of the commitment that African countries, for example, have made. In 2001, they committed themselves to providing 15 percent of their budgets to health, with the priority on HIV/AIDS. Many of them are currently not meeting these targets. And there is also a need for others outside -- the Global Fund for AIDS, external donors -- to make sure that they contribute generously to ensure that very weak health systems in these countries are strengthened and that people who need antiretroviral treatments, for example, do have those as well.

Canada's Role

Canada has played a very important role as a middle power in different arenas. It’s important to note that the United Nations remains the most important international forum for all African states because it is an institution that was designed to enhance the power of the weak against the powerful. And Canada, of course, has a rich tradition as far as the UN is concerned. Lester Pearson, your foreign minister at the time, was credited with the innovation of UN peacekeeping at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956. So I think that’s one role that Canada can play, to strengthen and support the UN in its main areas of work.

I think it’s important, secondly, that Canada contribute peacekeepers to UN peacekeeping missions in Africa and elsewhere. Because Canada, of course, has a rich history of UN peacekeeping, including in Africa, and I think that is something that, after Somalia and Rwanda, went into decline, and it’s important that that is increased.

And thirdly I think that in the economic area Canada can do a lot more in terms of making sure that it fulfills the 0.7 percent of GDP that was pledged as economic aid and assistance. There is an upward trend now, fortunately, at least if one listens to the rhetoric of Canadian civil servants and politicians, and one has to hope that that happens. But I think there are two other economic areas that Canada can contribute to. One is to help cancel the debt of Africa, which is $290 billion. I think Canada can play a role in helping to convince other members of the G8 -- the group of eight industrialized countries -- to cancel the debt. And in trade, I think a role for a middle power like Canada is to convince countries in the North, in the rich North, that are subsidizing their agriculture, badly damaging African agricultural exports, to do away with the subsidies. It is quite crass, for example, that the total amount that Europe and America spend on subsidizing their farmers is more than the total economic strength of sub-Saharan Africa. I think that sort of perverse, unfair trade needs to end.

Resource Exploitation

I don’t think resource exploitation in itself fuels conflicts, because you have resource exploitation in countries like Botswana, which has diamonds, that have remained perfectly stable. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing for Canadian companies to be investing in Africa, because Africa badly needs the investment. I think where we run into problems is when companies start investing in countries that are in the middle of civil wars and doing deals with unscrupulous warlords who are pocketing this rather than using the money to benefit the rest of the country, or where you have governments that are autocratic and also corrupt and pilfering much of this money. I think that is where one runs into problems.

Last Updated:2006-10-16

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