Introduction: the contested politics of peacebuilding in Africa / Peace as an incentive for war / Statebuilding and governance: the conundrums of legitimacy and local ownership / Security sector governance and peacebuilding / The limits of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration / The role of the African Union, new partnership for Africa's development, and African Development Bank in postconflict reconstruction and peacebuilding / Peacebuilding as governance: the case of the Pan-African Ministers Conference for Public and Civil Service / The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission: problems and prospects / Financing peace?: the World Bank, reconstruction, and liberal peacebuilding / The International Criminal Court: a peacebuilder in Africa? / The politics of negotiating peace in Sudan / Peacebuilding in the Great Lakes Region of Africa / Peacebuilding through statebuilding in West Africa? : the cases of Sierra Leone and Liberia / Oil and peacebuilding in the Niger Delta / Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration in Southern Africa: Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique / Peacebuilding without a state: the Somali experience