This book comprises nine chapters focusing on the theoretical foundation for exploring and investigating the AfSol concept, offering examples and applications of AfSol practices aimed at addressing peace and security challenges. Chapter two – Interrogating the Concept and Ideal of African-Centred Solutions to African Peace and Security Challenges by Amadu Sesay interrogates AfSol in depth, alluding to the continental concerns that AfSol has. He argues that the intellectual challenge in search of AfSol needs to follow on the consistencies and uniqueness of Africaness regarding the social, cultural, economic and political characteristics of Africans. In chapter three, Dawit Yoahnnes argues for practical preconditions for establishing institutions dealing with AfSol and translating them into initiatives by testing and subjecting the concepts and principles to case studies. For him, such tests can provide both ad-hoc and hands-on responses to defining, refining and delivering practical solutions to AfSol. Evelyn Mayanja argues in chapter four that the institutionalisation of AfSol should explore an African-centred hybrid form of sustainable peacebuilding and security. The complexities experienced in South Sudan’s conflict today necessitate hybridised African-centred solutions. The hybridity should interface between the local and international approaches,agents, ideas, practices and structures to reconstruct peace. Mercy Fekadu Mulugeta, in chapter five, brings out the issue of statehood, small arms and security governance into the debate of AfSol, in which there are, once again, incompatibilities of euro-centric state models to that of African countries. Like Mayanja, Mercy argues that Western models ignore African traditional governance mechanisms, their values and current role in governing the continent. In chapter six, Brenda Aleesi examines the situation of refugees who settled in Kampala, Uganda. The so called “urban refugees”, present a unique case and the initiatives taken in the form practicing AfSol. Uganda hosts several refugees from the Great lakes region and the Horn of Africa, but the country allows refugees to choose to reside in the urban areas especially in the capital, Kampala. In chapter seven, Caleb Wafula dissects the role of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in conflict transformation with particular evidence from Kenya’s post-election violence of 2007-2008. While many viewed Kenya’s long democracy largely as an icon and island of peace in the region, the violence proved the contrary.
