The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has adopted a proactive stance in peace efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In March, South Africa pledged that it would send troops to reinforce a 4,000-strong neutral SADC force, which was proposed after M23 rebels took the eastern Congolese city of Goma last November.

The new brigade, with troops to be provided by Tshwane, Tanzania, Malawi, and Namibia, represents the first time that the United Nations has authorised the incorporation of an African force within a traditional peacekeeping mission – in this case, the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (Monusco).

This innovative international military intervention follows the signing of a long-awaited multilateral peace deal for the Congo in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in February: The UN-initiated Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC.

After extensive lobbying and courting of relevant regional bodies including SADC, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), and the African Union, the framework was signed by 11 countries: Rwanda, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Angola, Uganda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Congo-Brazzaville, as well as the DRC and South Africa.

The 11+4 deal –eleven national signatories and four multilateral witnesses (SADC, ICGLR, AU, and UN) – was hailed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as an “innovative and comprehensive approach” that would bring stability to the region. Ban Ki-moon travelled to the region late May to support this process.

Although the accord provides an important opportunity for multilateral cooperation, its reception has been mixed.

This is mainly due to a history of failed peace initiatives in the Congo that have taken insufficient account of the needs and demands of local actors and have been seen as having been effectively forced on domestic parties, with all the key decisions being made elsewhere.

The M23 group itself is named after the date – 23 March 2009 – of an earlier multilaterally-negotiated conflict resolution agreement in the Kivus between President Joseph Kabila’s government and the former rebel Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP).

The evident subsequent failure of this deal, which was facilitated under the auspices of the UN by two former African presidents, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo and Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa, echoes the challenges that have characterised regional peacemaking efforts in the DRC since the African Union-sponsored Inter-Congolese Dialogue (ICD) launched in 2001

In this regard, the involvement of regional and international players as witnesses and supporters of the new accord is appropriate, but, arguably, it is the engagement of the neighbouring states that is the essential ingredient – the sine qua non – of its recipe for peace.

However, despite the agreement’s recognition of the crucial importance of a multilateral approach to conflict prevention in the Congo, it remains silent on the critical challenges of limited capacity in the DRC to ensure security and provide basic services, and on how best to involve all interested parties in the country in creating sustainable peace.

The need to address these key domestic issues was explicitly addressed by the UN Secretary-General last year. By contrast, and in making no mention of them, the Addis Ababa accord is simply a top-down framework.

Similarly, the new South African-backed intervention force can be seen as representing an isolated initiative.

This brigade totalling 3,069 peacekeepers to be based in North Kivu is expected to carry out targeted offensive operations, with or without the Congolese national army, against armed groups that threaten peace in the region.

It has been mandated to support Congolese authorities in their efforts to protect civilians, neutralise armed groups, and build peace, particularly by reforming the security sector and promoting the rule of law.

Although the force has been backed by the UN, critics have alleged that it is little more than a “paracetamol solution,” alleviating the current pain without curing the root causes of conflict in the DRC.

A particularly critical question is that of the new military powers to engage opposition combatants that have been granted to the brigade – powers that Monusco itself currently lacks.

Surely a more integrated approach would be to strengthen and consolidate the Monusco mandate itself, rather than accord special powers to a one-off military intervention.

Although the intentions behind the new neutral force and the signing of the new framework in February are positive, the effectiveness of these initiatives may be limited. The accord, for example, lacks detail on implementation: the roles and tasks that are to be ascribed to the many actors involved and the timing of their engagement.

When the cooks haven’t agreed who is doing what and when, they are likely to spoil the broth.

In addition, the new agreement may represent more a marriage of convenience than a loving union. Signatories Rwanda and Uganda have been named by the UN for supporting rebel groups in the eastern Congo. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, the present chairperson of ICGLR, is asking African and international donors to provide financial, logistical, and technical support to operationalise the framework and the intervention brigade.

As the UN noted in 2012: “While Rwandan officials coordinated the creation of the rebel movement and its major military operations, Uganda’s support to M23 allowed the rebel group to operate from within Kampala and boost its external relations.”

In this context, good intentions and grand multilateral plans can quickly come to nothing, if they are divorced from the hard political realities on the ground.

Paul Mulindwa is a senior project officer at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Cape Town