ABSTRACT
It has become increasingly difficult for states to single handily manage today’s complex threat environment. The intensity and frequency of weather related disasters, as well as cyber risks and terrorism amply demonstrate the futility of political boarders in an interconnected and interdependent world. Regional crisis management coordination represents an important solution to these and other transboundary threats. However, just like state borders, crises can easily spread over regional boarders, placing emphasise on inter-regional crisis management. This chapter examines how the African Union (AU) and its Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have begun to coordinate inter-regionally to manage major transboundary disasters. An examination of network coordination, distributed sense making, and surge capacity reveals the potential of inter-regional crisis management as an additional layer of governance. In this chapter we explore the development and effectiveness of regional networks for crisis preparedness. We examine the strength of the African Union (AU) and its Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as a network based on three key capacities of relevance for crisis management preparedness: network coordination, distributed sense making, and surge capacity. The outcome of this study reveals that existing collaboration between regional African organizations – often in relation to severe and complex crises dominated by various military and political crisis events –is fairly strong, and holds the potential for development. This study also provides an important heuristic for thinking about transregional crisis management preparedness as an additional layer of global governance.
