Leaders must rethink 'African solutions for African problems'

These range from mobilising and using African institutions to deal with specific African crises - such as the mediation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Zimbabwe, of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development in East Africa and of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Liberia and Sierra Leone - to developing grand continental reform projects - such as the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), intended to improve Africa's economic and governance performance respectively.

As we enter a New Year, we have to acknowledge that the "African solutions for African problems" approach has had some glaringly painful failures. The continuing crises in Somalia, in Zimbabwe, in Darfur and in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the surrounding Great Lakes region all demonstrate the weaknesses of the way "African solutions" have been implemented in 2008.