Because Africa has so frustrated the international community’s conventional attempts at peacemaking and development, the continent has become a testbed for innovative concepts and structures designed to reduce, if not eliminate, the misery that appears endemic. Whereas the Organization of Arab States (OAS) segregates states ethnically and is Middle East-centric, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) takes a decidedly economic bent. The grander Organization of African Unity (OAU), which arose as an anti-colonial movement in the 1960s, effectively dissolved in the 1990s when faced with internal dissonance and the slide into nearly a continental war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1998 and was subsequently reconstituted in 1999 as the African Union. Once a tentative ceasefire had been established in 2002, the international community, prompted by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan , began the task of weaving a wider international social fabric within central Africa.

Hence, the Group of Friends of the Great Lakes is comprised of at least 28 stakeholders ? only 11 of which are nation-states in the Great Lakes region. Joining various UN organizations, the African Union, the IMF, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the African Development Bank as “Friends” include such non-African states as Australia , Belgium , China , Denmark , Finland , France , Germany , Greece , the Holy See , Ireland , Italy , Japan , Kuwait , Luxembourg , Norway , Portugal , Russia , Spain , Sweden , Switzerland , the UK , and the US . While some are former colonial powers, others are current economic powers. Still others have played the role of peacemakers and/or neutral parties to conflicts, while the remainder often provides troops to international peace initiatives. Additionally, Gabon, Nigeria, and South Africa also participate in “Group of Friends” activities ultimately supporting the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), which currently is comprised of Angola , Burundi , Central African Republic , Republic of Congo , DRC, Kenya , Rwanda , Sudan , Tanzania , Uganda and Zambia .