“This paper treats natural resources conflicts as an intrinsic part of larger social conflicts and seeks to provide a link between natural resources and social conflicts, situate the debate within the nexus between natural resources management and conflict management, and argue for the use of a multi-actor approach in dealing with natural resources conflicts in the context of conflict management and peace management in the conflict cycle. Towards this end, practical examples of including natural resources conflict management strategies in successful diplomatic initiatives will be given, with the first being the role of natural resources in one of the most long-standing conflict systems in Africa – that in the Great Lakes region and particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is the conflict epicentre of the region. The second and third examples of the role of natural resources in conflict management processes will be an assessment of the environmental conflict management roles of two sub-regional regimes mandated to deal with conflicts in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes conflict systems, namely the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region(IC/GLR),respectively.”
