An Analysis Based on the Federal Government’s Africa-Related Guidelines and Strategy Papers

Content of the Study

With its guidelines on “Preventing Crises, Resolving Conflicts, Building Peace”, the Federal Government aims to make a long-term contribution to crisis prevention, conflict management and peace consolidation in conflict regions. To achieve this, the Advisory Board for Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding believes there needs to be greater coherence in the planning and implementation of the different ministries’ and implementing organisations’ externally oriented policies. Establishing peace policy coherence in Germany, at the European level and locally in conflict regions is a demanding and complex task. It requires not only cooperation between different German ministries but also coordination and cooperation at the European level and with other donors in conflict regions, as well as close coordination and cooperation with local actors in conflict regions.

Based on the 2017 guidelines, the present study analyses the coherences and incoherences in the Federal Government’s guidelines and strategy papers on its Africa policy. The results make clear that the Federal Government’s peace policy principle is only selectively reflected in the Africa-related guidelines and strategy papers. Although in recent years new coordination mechanisms have been created and coordination processes between the ministries have intensified, the decisive factor is still how they are employed and elaborated in concrete crises and conflicts.

The Advisory Board is mandated to advise the ministries and develop conceptual contributions of its own. The Advisory Board therefore has the opportunity to put forward its own expert reports or commission these. The present study is the first study commissioned and published by the Advisory Board. A working group within the Advisory Board initiated the commission and supported it through to publication. At the same time, the study represents the first step in a multi-stage process of increasing peace policy coherence across German government activities. Taking into consideration the selection criteria developed by the authors, the Advisory Board’s next step will be to conduct more detailed country case studies. These will analyse how the guidelines’ peace policy principle is implemented in select partner countries in Africa and to what extent engagement in situ can be judged to be coherent or incoherent.