Assessing Cooperative Institutional (UN-ECOWAS) Management of the Conflict in Cote D'voire (19 September 2002-15 November 2004)

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War, the confrontation between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States on African soil has petered out. So, too, has their intervention in conflicts on the continent, as attention moved to the newly independent Eastern bloc countries and the Persian Gulf. At the same time, the United Nations (UN) decided to playa more expanded role in conflict management, especially as the large number of intra-state conflicts emerging worldwide has come to. represent a considerable threat to international peace and security. The realization that states may have been rendered vulnerable by the absence of the superpowers watching over them may have constituted a motivating force for challenging state authority in African countries. Increasingly, conflicts have spurned in different parts of the continent, adding to older ones that are still waiting to be resolved. The vacuum created by the superpowers was seen as ail opportunity for Africans to resolve African problems. Hence, regional and sub-regional organisations rekindled their conflict management mechanisms. Accordingly, theEconomic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was revitalized with a stronger mandate to 'engage in conflict within the West African subvi region. On the same breath, this organisation got a shot in the arm when,in 1998, the UN, through its Secretary-General, reaffirmed the crucial role played by regional arrangements and promised to lend them UN support in this endeavour. This study is aimed at' analysing the cooperation between the UN and ECOWAS in managing the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire .