Russia-Ukraine war: can Africa reconstruct diplomatic variables with African leaders peace initiative?

Abstract

This paper examined selected African leaders’ peace initiative in the Russian-Ukrainian war. The issues in the war which formed the background were investigated. The matters that arose from the African leaders’ peace initiative were also discussed. Thus, capacity constraint was at the fore of the challenges and limitations. Other investigated issues were: What prompted the African leaders’ peace initiative and what was the content? What were the challenges and limitations? What were the implications of the war on Africa’s politics, economy and security? The conflict theory, realism theory and theory of good office were selected as the theoretical frameworks applied in the analysis of this paper, while data were gathered from secondary sources. The paper argues that although African leaders’ intervention was novel in global politics, the limitations arose due to capacity constraints and the character of the leaders which imposed difficulties that rendered the attempt to engender peace between the belligerents impossible. It is recommended that for Africa to be an effective player in global politics, it must purge itself of the numerous challenges that act as inhibitions such as corruption, insecurity, lack of industrialization, unstable economy, and inability to install acceptable and legitimate government through free, fair and credible elections.