The 39th African Union (AU) summit is set to be dominated by pressing security concerns across Africa, as the continent continues to face escalating conflicts.
However, there are mounting questions on whether the pan-African body can actually deliver on peace and security strategies: A study conducted by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in 2023 revealed that a staggering 90% of the decisions made by the AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) have not been implemented since the inception of the PSC in 2004.
In the lead-up to the summit, the AU had therefore embarked on a high-level review of its security, stability and governance frameworks, with a view of restructuring these programmes for better impact; the results and recommendations from the review will also be discussed at the summit, with the appetite for change within the AU growing steadily.
“This is an attempt to revive the African Union, which has obviously faltered and faced significant challenges both internally, but also in terms of bringing together African states to work collectively in the spirit of pan-Africanism,” Tim Murithi, a senior advisor at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation/Article 109 Coalition, told DW in Addis Ababa.
In addition to the AU review, the ongoing conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are once again expected to also take the spotlight in Addis Ababa this weekend.
No African leadership in place to address Sudan conflict
Since April 2023, Sudan has been rocked by the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF), resulting in a humanitarian and displacement crisis of extraordinary proportions: About 12 million people have been forced to flee their homes, with at least 150 000 others believed to have died in the war.
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The AU and its regional partners have thus far been unable to come up with a lasting peace plan for the protracted conflict.
Moussa Soumahoro, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), believes that structural problems within the AU might be to blame for this lack of progress: He thinks that the AU’s principle of subsidiarity – which puts Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in charge of addressing security crises within their areas – has led to this gridlock.
Makeshift shelters erected by displaced Sudanese who fled El-Fasher after the city fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), make up the Um Yanqur camp, located on the southwestern edge of Tawila, in war-torn Sudan’s western Darfur region.
In the case of Sudan, the REC responsible for intervening in the crisis is East Africa’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which Soumahoro explains has structural weaknesses of its own, resulting in further “impediments to its intervention on the ground” – as well as an overall gap in regional leadership.
“External actors are now filling the gap left by African institutions – namely the AU and IGAD in this case of Sudan,” Soumahoro said, pointing toward the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt – known collectively as the QUAD countries – who have been leading the initiative for peace in Sudan in the absence of African solutions.
DRC: no de-escalation despite global efforts
The crisis in the DRC will also be examined through a proverbial magnifying glass during the AU summit – another major conflict in Africa that is marked by ongoing violence and a massive population displacement.
The Congolese army and its allied local militias have been fighting against the M23 rebel group in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu for several years.
Members of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group inspect weapons surrender by Wazalendo militants in Uvira, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Daniel Buuma/Getty Images
M23 has long taken control of key areas in those two provinces, with many leaders in the international community believing that the violent group is being propped up by neighbouring Rwanda.
Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), recently voiced his deep concern over the lack of de-escalation in eastern DRC while stressing the urgency of prioritising civilian safety amid mounting reports of war crimes taking place.
But in this context, too, the drive to seek political solutions to the crisis is led by nations outside the continent, with the US and Qatar taking the lead in facilitating dialogue and helping with setting up preliminary agreements between the major conflicting parties involved.
“This is unfortunately true, with so many external actors playing a significant role in the continent,” Tim Murithi, a senior advisor at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation/Article 109 Coalition, told DW.
Much like Soumahoro, Murithi also finds that “internal weaknesses” among transnational African bodies like the AU are the main reason for the status quo.
External forces not only peacemakers
While external actors appear to be taking the lead with peace initiatives wherever the AU seems to be stuck in its own inaction, the interference of such outside forces across many parts of Africa is also increasingly being regarded suspiciously as a security concern.
“This is true particularly … in Sudan, [where] the UAE has some of the actors on the ground,” Soumahoro told DW, while Murithi explained that the issue of outside interference highlights just how crucial reform is for the African Union.
“The challenge … is for us as a continent to revive our African Union; revive the institutions, and promote collective action as a continent, which is the only way really we can decrease external intervention on the African continent”, he emphasised.
Volunteers perform physical exercises after registering as members of the Wazalendo – Patriots in Swahili – group to fight alongside the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) against the M23 armed group at the Funu Stadium in Bukavu.
Willy Nyamitwe, the permanent representative of Burundi to the African Union, agrees with these assessments: “We have new conflicts erupting. We have also some interference from outsiders – actors who are not from the continent,” he told DW in Addis Ababa.
With Burundi due to take over the rotating chairpersonship of the AU in 2026, Nyamitwe will now step into the role of chair for the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) of the AU.
But will his leadership and good intentions change anything within the body?
Despite pledging to do his part to bring peace to the continent, Nyamitwe himself seems unsure about how much change the AU can integrate.
“Security and peace on the continent [have been] agenda priority number one of the African Union since 2013, when we adopted our roadmap to silence the guns by 2030,” he said.
With only four years to go to achieve this, the goal of establishing peace, stability and security in Africa remains perhaps as elusive as ever.
This article was originally published on dw.com.
