FBA in sub-Saharan Africa

A large number of the world’s conflicts is in Africa. Africa is also the continent where the majority of UN’s peace operations are deployed. FBA is commissioned to support peace and security in the sub-Saharan region.

Contemporary conflicts commonly involve many different armed groups, both state and non-state actors, and tend to spill over borders. Civilian populations are often victims of violence. In order to solve today’s complex, cross-border conflicts and build sustainable peace, regional cooperation is needed.

FBA supports regional actors in sub-Saharan Africa in their efforts for peace, mainly the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Within the framework of Sweden’s development cooperation with sub-Saharan Africa, FBA is focused on two areas:

Women, peace and security
Women have traditionally played a marginalized role in peace processes in the region. Both the AU and ECOWAS aim at increasing the participation of women in their work, and at better recognizing and meeting the different security needs of women, men, boys and girls. FBA supports gender mainstreaming efforts in the AU and ECOWAS, for example through training and expert advice.

Dialogue and peace mediation
FBA offers expert advice on dialogue and peace mediation to the AU, in order to stregthen the organization’s role as a key mediator in African conflicts. FBA also offers dialogue and mediation training for ECOWAS and key actors within the ECOWAS member states, in order to enhance their capacity to prevent electoral violence. Violence in connection with elections is a widespread problem in West Africa.

Click here to read the entire strategy for Sweden’s development cooperation with sub-Saharan Africa 2016–2021.

New FBA mission – promote human security in southern Africa

Strengthening Africa’s regional forces for peace

Electoral violence a threat to peace and democratic development

Photo: UN Photo/Catianne Tijerina

FBA at the Almedalen Week 2019

During this year’s Almedalen Week in Visby, Sweden, FBA organized a series of seminars with relevance to peace, security and development.

2019-06-25 15:29

IN THE FIELD

Catalina Perdomo Rodriguez

Gender adviser in the DRC

Johan Chytraeus

Monitoring officer in Ukraine

Karolina Riedel

Statistician in election observation missions

Adam Bergman

Adviser to the UN in Nigeria

Mimmi Milligan

Reintegration adviser in Geneva

Björn Tedeman

Election observer

Julia Kempny

Political adviser in Somalia

Read our publications

Young Liberians Building Peace

This publication compiles lessons learnt from the first Conflict Prevention Leadership Program in Liberia, carried out by FBA and Liberian partners in 2018.

Documents

Young Liberians Building Peace.pdf

More Publications

THE FBA BLOG

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Posted by Susanna Rudehill
Are we making the link between peace and gender equality in Mali?

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We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. This groundbreaking resolution was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council, the highest decision-making body on international peace and security, in 2000. It recognizes the specific needs of women and girls in crisis situations and the key role women can play for peace in their countries.

The resolution is based on the simple conclusion that peace is not possible without the involvement of ... Read entire post »
2019-06-13 14:44
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Posted by Anna Möller-Loswick
“If men are better mediators, why is there always chaos in our countries?”

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At the beginning of May, I arrived in Oslo to attend this year’s annual meeting for the Nordic Women Mediators Network (NWM). The NWM consists of five Nordic networks of women with significant experience and expertise relevant to conflict mediation, peacebuilding and negotiations. The NWM meets at least once a year to share experiences and explore avenues for collaboration to promote women’s role in peace processes.

This year, the Norwegian network hosted the annual NWM meeting, which ... Read entire post »
2019-06-05 10:26
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Posted by Juliana Huus
In Liberia, security is everybody’s business

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According to the FBA’s definition, security sector reform (SSR) is a concept that frames technical reforms within a political process.

I think back two weeks to when I was in Liberia, reciting the for me now very familiar but abstract above sentence. The participants in the room, 16 program officers from the Liberian National Security Council Secretariat, were repeating this sentence with me in unison.

For the past four days, we had tried to unpack this sentence in ... Read entire post »
2019-05-09 16:04