Terrorism is a major hindrance to development in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) as it affects the region’s stability and peace. Terrorism has continued to thrive despite vigorous efforts to counter it in Africa through efforts such as sharing intelligence, robust financial coffers, military and resilience capacity, and well-guarded borders. The African Union considers terrorism as a major threat to African development and emphasizes on the importance of curbing terrorism Acts. Africa has taken an active role in fighting terrorism whereby initiative has been taken by various states as a collaborative effort to fight terrorism. Sub-Saharan countries come together and have a pool of resources which they use to counter-terrorism because individual states do not have enough resources to eradicate terrorism on their own.
According to Shor & Hoadley (2019), the various counter-terrorism initiatives employed in SSA do not respect the fundamental rights of human beings, and this is because they employ the same strategy used by terrorist who create fear and terror to intimidate their victims. Effective counter-terrorism measures should be enforced concurrent with respecting human rights where states are tasked with carrying out due diligence in regards to protecting human rights especially for children and women. States are also obligated to provide repatriation for groups of people displaced as a result of counter-terrorism (Shor & Hoadley, 2019).
Africa does not have effective and impartial organs due to the presence of policy that deny and cover up. There is also lack of political will whereby resolutions passed by international institutions face challenges when it comes to their implementation of the resolutions. These systems weaken the international institutions and the various frameworks because they can only work in states willing to let them.
Reference
Shor. E., & Hoadley, S. (EDS). (2019). International human rights and counter-terrorism.
