Road Maps in Resolving African Conflicts: Pathways to Peace or Cul de Sacs?

Road maps have become popular in recent African efforts to mediate and resolve conflicts. The African Union singly, or in concert with Regional Economic Communities and international actors, has invoked road maps as mediation and conflict resolution templates in Darfur, Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, and North-South Sudan. Although they are growing in significance, there is very little understanding of their usefulness and efficacy in peacemaking. It is important to understand whether road maps are pathways to peace or simply rhetorical tools that conceal the difficulties of negotiating protracted conflicts. More critical, therefore, is determining whether road maps facilitate or foreclose conflict resolution. This article probes these questions by examining some of the road maps in recent African conflicts with a view to shedding light on their conceptions, deployment, and impact on resolving conflicts. Both as process and content tools, road maps exemplify new collective African approaches to conflict resolution, but they also face severe constraints in managing conflicts that are characterized by deep divisions.