Authors
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Philip Duku Osei
Simon D. Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies
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Joseph Obeng-Baah
Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration
Abstract
In this paper, we examine Kofi Annan’s two most consequential roles in the course of his long career at the United Nations: his role in the Rwanda genocide in 1994 as the head of UN peacekeeping and his tenure as Secretary-General. A realist analysis of the Rwanda genocide which continues to be the referent point for critics of both Annan and the UN is presented. We find that, more than any personal or institutional failings, it was the retreat into a post-Cold War posture of realist non-interventionism of global powers based purely on realist considerations of national interest that mostly accounted for the inevitability and irreversibility of the Rwanda genocide. The paper also explores Annan’s bold idealist global initiatives during his time as Secretary-General and his contributions to human rights, human security, justice, conflict resolution and commitment to sustainable development in Africa, the continent of his birth.
Author Biographies
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Philip Duku Osei, Simon D. Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies
Philip Duku Osei is the Vice Chancellor of the Simon D. Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies in Wa, Ghana. Prior to his current position, he served as Deputy Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration and was, for many years, a Senior Fellow of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He has published extensively in the areas of public sector reform, government decentralization, social protection, poverty reduction, urban regeneration, and disaster management. He has also advised and consulted for several international development agencies and governments in both the Caribbean and Africa. He has a PhD in Research in Government from University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
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Joseph Obeng-Baah, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration
Joseph Obeng-Baah is an Adjunct Lecturer in International Relations at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. Prior to that, he was the Program Coordinator of the Development Communication program at the African University College of Communications in Accra, Ghana. He has also taught at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia in the United States and Pentecost University College in Ghana. He has a PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.
