What factors promote or hamper Security Sector Reform (SSR) planning and implementation in West Africa? Why has the donor-led focus on formal organisations proven ineffective? This study analyses the interaction between formal organisations and informal networks in the Mano River Basin (MRB). It finds that all socio-economic and social-political action in the MRB is carried out through informal networks. A comprehensive approach to security in the region needs to include a wide range of partners and actors, including ‘Big Men’ who have unofficial authority.
For the past 20 years the MRB has suffered violence and political upheaval. Although there is currently formal peace, poverty and violence are still realities for many people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Despite ample emergency and development funds from Western donors there is little progress in development. This threatens stability and long-term security across the region.
Direct outcomes from Security Sector Reform (SSR) efforts in the region remain uncertain, and have not achieved security and social stability. Formal organisations such as the Mano River Union (MRU), African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) lack capacity and resources, and are only partially effective.
Controlling people rather than territory is central to politics in the MRB. The mutual relationship between a patron (‘Big Man’) and his network is at the heart of how the state functions. To achieve and maintain power is to control an extensive network. This brings politics, economics and hard security together into one system. The informal structure decides the importance and real use of the formal one. The study reveals that:
- Informal networks consist of a multitude of actors: politicians and political parties, military, finance, Non-Governmental Organisations, national and international actors, secret societies, businessmen, religious leaders, warlords, and trade unions.
- The informality and inaccessibility of these networks makes them both effective and difficult to see and address.
- None of the formal transparent mechanisms at either state or regional level can function without the support or authorisation of informal networks.
- External actors including peacekeepers, business interests and donors also function as ‘Big Men’ and connect to national and regional informal networks.
Western governments, the United Nations, and International NGOs inevitably connect with informal networks and act as ‘Big Men’ despite their efforts to form separate, ‘clean’ forms of governance. This denial repeats mistakes of the colonial era because it leads to formation of an extra parallel system to the indigenous network. It hinders efforts to structurally improve and stabilise the MRB region. Western donors must embrace the central importance of informality as the driving force in social and political action in the MRB. This needs to inform the development of pragmatic guidelines to implement SSRs and PRSPs. Further:
- The Mano River Peace Forum might function as a temporary stage for broader engagement with ‘Big Men’ and informal networks.
- Formal organisations such as AU, ECOWAS, and MRU are an important starting point for improved regional security, but must have improved capacity to bring about real change.
- Donors should avoid seeing ‘Big Men’ from a solely ‘rational choice’ perspective. To maintain their position, ‘Big Men’ use networks to extend solidarity within a moral framework.
