Ensuring a strong African voice in global security discussions

At a Munich Security Conference dominated by the fracturing of US-Europe relations, ISS kept African priorities on the global agenda.

Published on 24 June 2025 in Impact

‘The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) is one of the few African think tanks focused on security. This is important for the Munich Security Conference (MSC) because the ISS helps us to rethink broader African and global security issues like climate change, food security and migration,’ says Michael Werz, MSC Senior Adviser, North America and Multilateral Affairs.

Food security is high on Africa’s agenda as both a cause and consequence of conflict. Ottilia Anna Maunganidze is Head of Special Projects at the ISS and represents the institute on the MSC food security task force. The task force launched in February 2024 to guide a more geopolitically strategic response to hunger and its causes and consequences. This is also a focus area for South Africa’s presidency of the G20 this year.

‘The ISS makes key contributions to the MSC food security task force and makes sure the African dimension is at the forefront of our discussions,’ says Werz.

‘They helped us to understand the weaponisation of food in Africa, with supplies being used as a recruitment and retention tool by insurgents like Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia, a phenomenon also playing out in places like Gaza and Ukraine.’

The MSC is a forum for discussing international security policy, attended by heads of state, defence staff, the private sector, non-government organisations and strategists from intergovernmental bodies like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN). Alongside national and military issues, it scrutinises the economic, environmental and human dimensions of security.

This year’s meeting was a precursor to the NATO and G7 summits in June, where the global community will closely watch how the United States (US) signals its future global role. The ISS is helping African governments to critically reflect on how these international currents impact the continent’s security and development agenda.

‘The ISS helps us to rethink broader African and global security issues like climate change, food security and migration’

With Trump slashing US aid and development budgets, Africa must strategically diversify its partnerships. Already China’s pivot to deepened multilateralism and advancing the development agenda presents opportunities.

‘Munich was underpinned by the Trump administration’s challenge to decades of Western unity and partnership,’ Maunganidze says. ‘The ISS helped African delegates to position the continent to create opportunities from this shift.

‘Africa is no longer a post-colonial bystander and supplicant but an active participant in world affairs, with emerging economic and political power.’

While conflicts like those in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo may get some attention, Africa overall could become a lower geostrategic concern than the Middle East, Ukraine and Taiwan.

‘We absolutely value ISS strategic assessments and their capacity to contextualise conflicts like those in Sudan with many external players. We would not have these insights without the ISS,’ says Werz.

In Munich, ISS had bilateral meetings with development partners, governments, the African Union and European Union. It joined discussions on future African-led peace operations and reducing civilian harm in conflict zones. Maunganidze was a panelist in a Chatham House public discussion on rethinking the outdated rules-based order, and the ISS’ African Futures and Innovation team hosted a side event on Africa’s agency in a globalised world.

Countries like the US and Germany, and regional groupings like the EU, sought ISS views on how to engage more constructively with Africa, and valued the institute’s insights on issues ranging from Gaza and Ukraine to the role of emerging international actors like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

‘The question is how Africa, with its less fixed historic alignments, can leverage its strategic advantages in a changing world, including its abundant resources and a youthful population,’ says Maunganidze.

ISS Senior Researcher Priyal Singh, who was also at the MSC, says a more fractured Western alliance will allow other major international actors to continue expanding their influence in Africa. ‘China, Turkey, the Gulf States, India and Russia will look to expand into gaps left by Western interests, particularly regarding security cooperation.’

Singh says that responding to these geopolitical headwinds will require bold leadership, particularly from Africa’s regional anchor states, including South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Ethiopia.

As changes in US policy create uncertain times for Africa, ISS is helping the continent’s decision makers assess where more reliable partnerships may be found.

For more information, contact:

Ottilia Anna Maunganidze, ISS: [email protected]