US Working With Nigeria, Others To Curb Instability In Africa, Says Department Of State

The United States has announced on Wednesday that it is collaborating with Nigeria and other African countries to address the causes of instability on the continent and prevent the situation from deteriorating.

Mallory Stewart, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability (ADS) at the United States Department of State, spoke to the press about the purpose of her visit to Nigeria.
‘I have heard a lot, and I have seen the banditry challenge and experiences in the news, so we have been trying to appreciate and understand how to affect those things we call drivers of instability, drivers of a security environment conducive to these challenges.

‘”And we are collaborating with partners in Nigeria to try to get ahead of some of those challenges or figure out how to manage some of them. For example, confidence-building measures or the ability to demonstrate greater compliance with international treaties could help domestically provide for legislation that prevents some of the insecurity that results from the inability to implement the international legal regime.

‘We are currently working to prevent further instability and address the drivers. One of the interesting conversations we have had in other African countries has been talking about the challenges of resource confidence-building of farmers, conversation, and how we manage confidence building measures to ensure access is allowed for the important resources, such as water in some of these communities, and it is been really helpful to work on communication capacities, to work on, even sometimes, information exchanges that provide greater understanding.

“So, to be more specific, coming here has been extremely beneficial in understanding the multitude of challenges that these communities face daily. Just as the global community is dealing with inflationary pressures following COVID-19, correct? This is a very real issue, and I am interested in how we can incorporate, hopefully, some confidence-building measures, some mechanisms to hear more information and allow for a greater exchange of information to hopefully get ahead of that tension.

Stewart, who revealed that she had met with some operators in the Nigerian security sector and civil society movement, stated: “Our bureau is here to focus on hearing the Nigerian voice, hearing the concerns, and identifying areas where we can collaborate to support stability and security across the board. To achieve greater stability, our bureau uses a combination of confidence-building measures and security mechanisms. We do this with our partners all over the world. And so some of the important conversations we were able to talk about was how we can work to hear the Nigerian interest in a political declaration that the US government has been working with right now 55 other countries, hopefully, more, including some African nations, to agree upon the responsible uses of AI in the military context, right to sort of make sure we can get these ten principles using AI in a manner consistent with international law, recognising inherent humanity. So it is a good encapsulation of what we do in our Bureau, which is to maximise the benefits of stability and security mechanisms while minimising some of the risks that can be inherent in emerging technologies or challenges in implementing treaties.

“One of the other conversations we had was our upcoming partnership with the Nigerian government to lead a conversation for the region on the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and understanding the challenges in that context so that you know the Nigerian voice in explaining sometimes the concerns with respect to non-state actors in terms of chemical security, how they can be important in the region, and how as a region, if ECOWAS member states, can also We also discussed where we can contribute to what is already a very complicated and sophisticated group of participants in the Yaounde architecture and understanding, if we can provide any additional capacities in communication, enabling or better standard operating procedures for all the diverse players, working through an appreciation for Nigeria’s role in that, working through an appreciation for the maritime centres that are based here to see if we can facilitate a. So here are some of the conversations we had.”