The threat of failed states to Africa’s political and economic viability

When a government ceases to properly and effectively function, that country can become vulnerable to both outside interference and lawless internal forces. State failure means the dissolution of central political and economic institutions, and struggle among competing groups for authority or governance in regions of a given territory, for the exercise of the monopoly of violence.

Failed states pose a fundamental threat to Africa’s political and economic viability. Failed states have to a large extent undermined and made a mockery of the paradigm shift to participatory democracy in some regions of the continent in the past decade. Origins of state failure are not country-specific but are similar across countries on the African continent. A failed state can no longer perform basic functions, such as education, security or governance, usually due to fractious violence or tenacious poverty. This has been the bane of Sub-Saharan Africa. Within this power vacuum, ordinary citizens fall victim to competing factions and crimes, and sometimes the international community or neighboring countries intervene to prevent humanitarian disaster.

The current situation in Somalia comes to the fore where warlords and rebel groups have destabilize the institutions of government thereby rendering the nation ungovernable and unlivable.

However, states fail not only because of internal factors. Foreign governments can also knowingly destabilize a state by fueling ethnic warfare or supporting rebel forces causing the state to collapse. Africa has the highest percentage of failed states, making the continent naturally inclined and liable to underdevelopment and instability.