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4. Conflict

What we agreed at Gleneagles

The G8 will provide technical assistance and support to African peace support operations, the development of the Africa Standby Force and the wider African Peace and Security Architecture.
The G8 and other donors will improve the effectiveness of transfer controls over small arms and light weapons and review the United Nations (UN) Programme of Action to collect and destroy illicit small arms in Africa.
The G8 will develop international standards in arms transfers.
The G8 will support reconstruction in post-conflict countries, including disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants.
The G8 will support the UN Peace Building Commission.

How is the UK doing?

schoolchildren in war torn northern uganda The UK has played a leading role in supporting international efforts at reducing conflict for example on Darfur through the UN and support for the African Union peacekeeping mission, to which we have contributed £67m since May 2004. UK has given funding and technical assistance on the development of an African Standby Force – helping to build strong international support. UK has trained approximately 11,000 African troops in peacekeeping disciplines since 2004.

We are also continuing to support security sector reforms in key countries like Sierra Leone and DRC, including helping to build more effective and accountable armed forces.

In March this year the Department for International Development (DFID) published a policy paper entitled Preventing Violent Conflict. This commits the UK to make our overall aid programme more 'conflict sensitive'.

In 2007, the UK withdrew its cluster munitions from service and is working towards an international ban by 2008 through the Oslo process. In October 2006 the Conference on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) agreed to investigate the adequacy of international humanitarian law – a vital first step toward an international ban on cluster munitions.

How the international community is doing

While the headlines will not allow us to forget some of the worst current violence, it is also true that global levels of conflict are falling. According to the Human Security Report, the number of armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa has reduced by 60% since 2002.

Since Gleneagles, the African Union (AU) has completed the planning process for setting up the Africa Standby Force, which should be fully operational by 2010. It has also set up a ‘Panel of the Wise’, made up of five distinguished African statesmen and women to lead its mediation efforts. We are working to bring UN support to the AU’s mission in Darfur and new AU missions have been launched in Somalia and Burundi.

In 2006, the EU agreed to provide up to a further €300 million for AU peacekeeping from 2008-2010, and continues to help finance AU operations and build the capacity of the AU to prevent and mange conflict.

The UN Peacebuilding Commission, set up in December 2005, has begun work in both Sierra Leone and Burundi, focusing on youth employment, good governance, justice and security sector reform, community recovery and capacity building. The new UN Peacebuilding Fund was launched in October 2006, with current commitments totalling $217 million.

In December 2006, 153 countries voted at the UN General Assembly to start a process leading to negotiations on an Arms Trade Treaty.

What should happen next?

The AU will operationalise the African Standby Force.
The international community will step up its support for regional brigades and central planning structures. The international community needs to identify better ways to help share the burden of African Union peacekeeping missions – building on current support from the EU, and UN member states.

The UN will establish a Group of Governmental Experts to examine what an Arms Trade Treaty might look like and will report back at the end of 2008. In the meantime, all member states are sending their views on a treaty to the UN Secretary General.

Where it is making a difference

The civilian population of Northern Uganda has been terrorised for years by the brutal violence of the Lord’s Resistance Army, but now there are glimmers of hope that a final resolution may be in sight through a UK supported for the mediation process.

In Sierra Leone sustained UK support has helped to bring stability to one of the most conflict prone countries in Africa.

Close to 7,000 African Union troops, civilian police and observers are currently deployed in Darfur, Western Sudan.

Last updated 12 March 2008