Williams, P D 2018 Strategic Communications for Peace Operations: stability The African Union’s Information War Against al-Shabaab. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 7(1): 3, pp. 1–17, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.606 RESEARCH ARTICLE Strategic Communications for Peace Operations: The African Union’s Information War Against al-Shabaab Paul D. Williams Despite widespread agreement that effective strategic communications are a necessary part of complex peace operations, many missions struggle to generate relevant capabilities and implement effective campaigns. This article analyzes the experiences of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as a case study of this problem. Specifically, it examines how the United Nations (UN) tried to fill the gap by hiring a consortium of private firms known as the AU-UN Information Support Team (IST) to wage a strategic communications campaign against al-Shabaab. The IST’s goal was to drive, as well as communicate, AMISOM’s success, improve the mission’s media presence, and develop a communications strategy. The IST played an innovative and important function for AMISOM but suffered from several significant challenges that reduced its effectiveness. The conclusion therefore identifies four main lessons from AMISOM’s experiences that could improve strategic communications for peace operations. Introduction see also Duffey 2000). There have also been There is very little scholarly literature on how periodic calls for specific missions to improve to design and implement effective strategic their strategic communications capabilities communications for peace operations. The (e.g. Boutellis and Fink 2016: 24–25). few examples have focused on the need for The lack of scholarly attention is surpris- the United Nations (UN) to manage public ing given that several international organi- opinion in its mission areas and utilize new zations engaged in peace and security communications technologies through effec- activities have long recognized the impor- tive information strategies (e.g. Lehmann tance of developing a strategic communi- 1999; Lindley 2004; Betz and Papper 2015; cations policy. Both the UN and European see also Lehmann 2015; Oksamytna 2017) Union (EU), for example, have a Strategic or recommended that UN peacekeepers Communications Division that deals with develop cultural awareness, i.e. ‘the ability peace operations as part of their Department to attain knowledge about the particular cul- of Public Information and European External tural characteristics of the people of a certain Action Service, respectively. Similarly, NATO terrain (state or region)’ (Bellou 2014: 579; has a strategic communications policy and a specific military concept for it (NATO The George Washington University, USA 2009, 2010). Effective strategic communica- [email protected] tions have also been widely recognized as a Art. 3, page 2 of 17 Williams: Strategic Communications for Peace Operations necessary part of countering insurgencies that was subsequently developed. Third, suc- (e.g. Petraeus 2008) and combating terror- cessful strategic communications require ism (e.g. Fink and Barclay 2013). more than just institutional capacity in the At the UN, it is now widely agreed in prin- mission; they also require sustained, high- ciple that ‘a broad-based, well-resourced and level political support from the key stake- accurately evaluated strategic communica- holders beyond the mission to ensure that tions plan’ is a necessary part of managing the agreed policies are implemented. ‘evolving expectations and build[ing] lasting Following the scholarly literature, I define support among central constituencies’ for its strategic communications as ‘the purposeful contemporary peace operations (Challenges use of communication by an organization to Forum 2015: 1). However, this is rarely imple- fulfill its mission’ (Hallahan et al 2007: 3). Or, mented, prompting the 2015 High-Level more precisely, as the ‘coordinated actions, Independent Panel on United Nations Peace messages, images, and other forms of sign- Operations (HIPPO) to recommend that com- aling or engagement intended to inform, munications teams must be deployed to influence, or persuade selected audiences to ensure ‘interactive two-way communications support national objectives’ (Paul 2011: 3). with the local people’ and peace operations Its principal methods include audience anal- must possess ‘modern and appropriate com- ysis, goal setting, and message strategy. munications approaches and technologies’ In UN peace operations, such tasks are (HIPPO 2015: §309). normally the remit of the Public Information At the African Union (AU), however, the Unit (PIU). However, the AU’s lack of capabili- Commission’s only strategic communications ties in this area meant that when AMISOM capability is the Directorate for Information deployed to Mogadishu in March 2007, it and Communication, which focuses on the did so without the ability to wage an effec- day-to-day communications about its gen- tive strategic communications campaign. For eral activities. The AU Commission’s Peace its first two years, AMISOM had virtually no and Security Department has no dedicated media presence or proactive communication strategic communications capability. In strategy and operated with a ‘bunker mental- 2016, there was an attempt to develop a pub- ity’ whereby media briefings were sporadic, lic information policy and capacity for AU poorly organized, the messaging confused peace operations but it has not been com- and the tone defensive (IST 2012: 78). The pleted. It drew heavily on the communica- resulting information vacuum played into tions strategy developed for the AU Mission the hands of opposition forces and under- in Somalia (AMISOM) (Interview, AU official, mined AMISOM’s operational effectiveness. 3 December 2017). In particular, AMISOM’s reputation with This article therefore uses AMISOM as a case local Somalis and key international partners study to illustrate the importance of devel- suffered from: incoherence of its narrative; oping effective strategic communications for opaqueness and lack of transparency; and peace operations engaged in enforcement problems related to civilian and AMISOM and stabilization activities and the challenges casualties and human rights violations perpe- posed in the AU’s case.1 Among other things, trated by the mission’s personnel (Interview, it concludes that the AU has thus far oper- former UNSOA official, 28 September 2017). ated without a dedicated strategic communi- To remedy this situation and counter al- cations capacity for its peace operations and Shabaab’s narrative of events, in November should develop one soon. Second, not only 2009 the UN Support Office for AMISOM was AMISOM deployed without the capacity (UNSOA) contracted a consortium of pri- to conduct an information campaign, its con- vate firms that established the AU-UN tributing countries were not always willing Information Support Team (IST). Utilizing to implement the communications strategy techniques employed in a variety of war Williams: Strategic Communications for Peace Operations Art. 3, page 3 of 17 zones, the IST’s goal was to drive, as well as efforts to promote a strategic narrative about communicate, AMISOM’s success, improve AMISOM and Somalia. The second section the mission’s media presence and develop discusses the major challenges faced by the a communications strategy. Working with IST, paying attention to the roles of AMISOM’s AMISOM’s tiny PIU, the IST devised key stra- contributing countries. The conclusion iden- tegic information objectives related to main- tifies four main lessons that should be drawn taining the cooperation and support of the from AMISOM’s experiences with strategic local population, informing international communications. As well as relevant official opinion of AMISOM’s progress in order to documents and scholarship, the article draws sustain support from troop-contributing on interviews with relevant experts and per- countries (TCCs) and donors, and promot- sonnel involved in these activities as well as ing a culture of peace and non-violence internal, unpublished documents given to in Somalia to create an environment for the author. national reconciliation. Especially between 2010 and late 2012, AMISOM’s Strategic Communications the IST actively countered al-Shabaab’s stra- AMISOM’s principal objective in the strate- tegic narrative in several respects, including gic communications realm was to prevent building greater confidence in the mission al-Shabaab dominating the narrative about and its effects. Later, however, several factors Somalia. It therefore devoted considerable coalesced that reduced AMISOM’s ability to time and effort to understanding how al- deliver effective strategic communications. Shabaab conducted its media operations. First, the environment in which the IST was Although al-Shabaab’s strategic communi- asked to operate changed, most notably cations are not the focus of this article, it AMISOM’s expansion beyond Mogadishu should be noted that the militants have run and the inclusion of new TCCs (Kenya, a very capable, multifaceted media and infor- Djibouti, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia), which mation operations campaign for over a dec- eroded the mission’s coherence. Second, dur- ade (see ICG 2010; Hansen 2013; Anzalone ing late 2012 and early 2013, the UN and AU 2016; Kriel 2017). They have consistently, competed over which organization should and sometimes accurately, depicted