There are political risks to even floating the idea. But a summit could conceivably reset the discourse around a war currently stuck dangerously in cycles of escalation.
Residents in Poltava, Ukraine, survey the damage from a Russian attack.
Dogukan Keskinkilic/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The country urgently needs more people who are committed to living decently to undo the systemic humiliation caused by political and economic institutions.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir (right) and his deputy Riek Machar shake hands in Addis Ababa to signify a peace deal in September, 2018.
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Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of failed peace talks. Understanding the challenges to successful peace talks helps illuminate the struggle for peace in Eastern Europe.
Instead of drawing on the lessons of its own negotiated settlement and its rich history of peace-making in Africa, Pretoria chose to appease Russia.
Displaced people arrive in Pemba, Mozambique, after fleeing Palma following a brutal attack by Islamist insurgents in March.
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While South Africa should pay careful attention to all its existing trade and economic relations, particular attention should go to its intra-African economic relations.
Former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki share a light moment at a meeting of the G8 and developing nations in Tokyo in 2000.
EFE-EPA/Michel Euler
Former presidents Obasanjo and Mbeki have arguably made the most important contribution to Africa in the 21st Century by promoting peace, democracy, regional integration and pan-Africanism.
A soldier from Niger patrols near the border with Nigeria. Porous borders with Nigeria and Mali are hotbeds for Jihadists and marauding local militias.
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South Africa’s post-apartheid leaders have failed to properly prepare the military for secondary roles such as peacekeeping, let alone to a fight a virus.
Chinese soldiers and police serve in eight UN peace missions in Africa.
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Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations and Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States (ACSUS), University of the Witwatersrand
Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Centre, and Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford