Diplomacy has existed since the beginning of the human race. Negotiations between two persons, or two nations at a large scope is essential to the upkeep of international affairs.
Diplomacy can therefore be defined as the means by which states conduct their affairs to ensure peaceful relations.
Diplomats are charged to safeguard the interests of their respective countries abroad. In this, they help in the promotion of political, economic, cultural, or scientific relations and international commitment to defend human rights or the peaceful settlement of disputes. The rules that today apply throughout the world for the conduct of diplomatic affairs are set out in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Diplomacy has its ancient roots firmly in Africa yet the idea of African diplomacy is surprisingly new because most states are very young compared to those in the rest of the world.
The concept of diplomacy and diplomatic relations has always been attributed to the Western countries partly due to the legacy of colonialism, and the damage caused by Cold War proxy wars. These have infused the continent's diplomacy with a collective memory of subjugation and marginalisation.
Ask any Kenyan to mention any present or a former foreign ambassador and hear them mention those from either the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, or the European Union bloc. Nobody will mention any from an African country, and you cannot blame them. Those diplomats do not just exist. They are ever absent – not on television and not on field missions. Their countries' interests or so it seems are always served silently.
But there is a special breed emerging to redefine African diplomacy in Africa. The drive and mission are something that other African ambassadors should borrow a leaf from.
This ambassador is proving that African diplomats are no lesser diplomats; those intra-African relations are the surest way to boost trade and socioeconomic welfare of the African themselves.
Dr. Mokhtar Gambou is the Moroccan ambassador to Kenya. He has been up and down reshaping the relations between the fifth and sixth Africa's largest economies. His model of making use of the devolved units is a classical way of making international trade to benefit the common man. His mission of bringing investors to the counties and encouraging the interdependence of Africa as a continent must be celebrated.
Gambou has engaged many governors to take part in various initiatives from Morocco thus inculcating lots of economic activities. He happens to be a former MP in Morocco and a Ph.D. holder from Ivy League Yale University, arguably the best in the globe.
Is it by sheer reason for his activities being once a politician who validly understands the dynamics of people’s needs? Such notions justify career politicians to be the ambassadorial appointees than the so-called technocrats who may have no ideas on the people’s needs.
Gambou, an Arabic speaker with impeccable mastery of Queens’s language, has openly and actively outwitted his colleagues from the continent in engagements of social and economic transformation between Kenya and Morocco.
This should be the new definition of diplomacy. In addition to the socio-economic transformation, he has been largely involved in the promotion of higher education through awarding of scholarships to African students to study in universities abroad.
REDEFINING AFRICAN DIPLOMACY
The idea that African diplomacy presents a distinct form or style of diplomacy is rather recent because the majority of African states gained political independence only during the past five decades.
The subject of African diplomacy is often shrouded in generalised accounts of the continent as a supplicant actor. These actors determined by a variety of factors, including the type of governmental regime in place, possession, and control of strategic commodities by the regime in place, and the willingness of the governmental regime to work with civil society in its engagements with external partners.
However, African diplomacy should not be solely seen as emanating from and being exerted by governmental elites but should also be examined as coming from independent civil society movements as well as exceptional and ordinary African individuals such as Gambou. Thus, African diplomacy is multifaceted and multi-actor in nature.
The fear now is that such initiatives such as Gambou may run into headwinds. T African diplomacy to succeed, trade barriers, red tapes must be abolished in the continent.
Africa must strive to build its infrastructure to increase trade among countries. Enhancing trade integration between African countries could yield large economic, social, and political gains.
Other African diplomats in African embassies should come out just as bold as Gambou for Africa to grow.
The writer is a university lecturer