 Friday was an intense day. We started the day with Dr Francis from the University of Bradford on the topic “The Fire Next Door”: Peace and Security Architecture in Africa. He took us through the process that the African Union as a regional organ has initiated and followed in restructing and structuring the organ as a whole to deal with peace and security in particual countries in trhe continent. He started the process by deconstructing Africa. That most of us did not really know Africa. That Africa is known as a homogenous, hopeless continent which is contrary to the fact that it is a continent with many countries with different levels of socio-economic development as well as different political legacies and histories with diverse forms of political systems. He emphasized that there are military and non military threats to peace but that the links between the two were very close. He went on to say that after the end of the Cold war there was limited strategic relevance of Africa which consequently led to a concept of assertive regionalism in Africa framed as ‘African solutions to African problems’ based on Afro-responsibility from non-interference in domestic affairs to non-indifference. He however noted that this is a contradiction in itself since this may raise sovereignty issues and illegal actions which will then require retroactive legitimacy.the second part of the day focused on Media development in conflict and post conflict societies delivered by Klaus… He went through the role of the media and the effects it had on the case study of Iraq and Sudan.
Lucy Ladira, Uganda
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