-COVID-19 is evident of how natural causes can affect peace
KAMWENJE
CHINJILI-BANDA
THE rise of international organisations came during the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference where representatives of victorious nations of World War I gathered.
There was much controversy with regards to the establishment of a league that would act as a promoter of co-operation, peace and security in the world.
However, after World War II in 1945, another international system which resulted in establishment of the United Nations (UN) and the growth of international organisations emerged.
It is sanguinely described as one of the main peace-promoting factors of our time. Many international organisations are involved in peace-making, peaceenforcing, and peacekeeping activities.
Such organisations promote dialogue and learning among states, allowing them to rethink their security priorities and behaviour. They promote peace by facilitating costly diplomatic signalling among states through imposition of sanctions, embargoes, or other non-militarised strategies.
Since 1945, intra-state wars, mass killing by governments, and inter-state wars represent major security risks in the world. As such, international organisations employ a wide range of approaches in resolving conflicts and ensuring maintenance of peace as they act as mediators and enforcers in times of conflict.
The approaches used by some of these international organisations include sanctioning of defiant states, mediation, arbitration, military assistance, counter-terrorism, and disarmament.
Secondly, many of these organisations have similar organisational structures. For instance, the African Union (AU) has an organisational structure similar to that of the UN.
This helps them, sometimes, collaborate to successfully serve as mediators and provide the necessary conditions of restoring peace.
International bodies also serve as donors, they provide the needed resources for conflict resolution and peacebuilding. These resources may include money, artilleries, military personnel, health workers, policy-makers, and many more.
For instance, the European Union donated €15 million to support the AU peace mission in Somalia and pledged to support the African Peace and Security Architecture with €300 million between 2008 and 2010.
Just as some of these international organisations share similarities in their roles, the UN normally establishes peace through restoration and maintenance strategies.
This includes preventive diplomacy and mediation, peacebuilding, counter-terrorism and disarmament, and early warning.
Others are preventive deployment, adjudication, peacekeeping, sanctions and military force, impartial humanitarian assistance, and postconflict rebuilding. Nonetheless, peace and harmony cannot be restricted to disputes and arms violence only. Natural disasters such as pandemics, droughts, and hurricanes disrupt global peace and stability.
The COVID-19 pandemic is evident of how natural causes can affect peace and harmony even in hegemonial states.
So far, the virus has killed around 6,709,387 people and infected about 663,248,631 people worldwide.
Lockdowns in many countries affected economic activities leading to a 5.2 percent contraction in the global economy, and it has been the worst since the great global economic slump.
The outbreak of coronavirus amplified the need for many countries to secure their borders to prevent the virus and its different strains from entering.
Many countries introduced several travel restrictions with some completely closing borders to international tourism. Other restrictive measures were the introduction of COVID passports, flight bans, and mandatory quarantines at airports, but many international organisations played supportive roles in the COVID-19 era.
Most of the organisations supported states to restore peace
and stability during the lockdowns by providing financial relief and health aid.
Most organisations were overseeing transnational research on the pandemic and exchanging crucial information, launching relief funds, and coordinating international operations, including airlifting supplies and medical personnel.
However, there are views that the world does not need international organisations for global cooperation and peace. Such views argue that at macro-political level, global cooperation can still be facilitated without international organisations.
These claims have been deliberated further after the Russia-Ukraine war as to whether international organisations will be successful in preventing or de-escalating conflicts.
The Russia-Ukraine war has posed a load on international bodies on how effective they will be in ending the conflict. Despite their efforts to end the conflict through various sanctions, Russia, without
hesitation, stated that any attempt by any country or international institution to subdue it through military action will have dire consequences, resulting in complex diplomatic interventions.
Consequently, the conflict has resulted in many questions and doubts around the diplomatic municipal as to whether or not the UN and other key organisations will be able to transform this belt of insecurity into a belt of security.
To sum up, Zambia being an active member of international organisations such as Southern African Development Community, it has managed to facilitate and maintain peace in the region by
upholding the organisational vision and values of a common future.
This common future will ensure economic well-being, improvement of standards of living and quality of life, freedom and social justice,
peace and security for people in southern Africa.
The author is a research fellow at Copperbelt University Dag Hammarskjold Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
