Towards Complementarity In African Conflict Management Mechanisms

The history of conflict is as old as human history. From the dawn of human history, communities have been competing for control of resources and for dominance. These competitions inevitably led individuals as well as social, political, economic and religious groups to conflicts. It is true that conflict has devastating effects and it is unwanted. It is also true that conflict is unavoidable and it continues to occur. Since the causes of conflict are different, it would be better to use different mechanisms for the prevention and resolution of conflicts. By avoiding conflict, we avoid not only one of the hindrances of economic development but also foreign powers’ intervention, which may exacerbate the domestic conflicts. Therefore, more than anybody else governments, whose main duty is maintenance of peace and security, are responsible for providing their respective peoples with alternative conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms, popular and widely used among these are the African Traditional mechanisms.