Spotlight: African Union sanctions toolkit enhanced by ISS expertise

ISS helped the AU tighten its sanctions regime in response to a surge of coups on the continent.

Published on 12 June 2025 in Impact

The African Union’s (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) sanctions sub-committee was first established in 2009 but never took effect due to a lack of support from member states.

Then starting in 2021, the continent experienced a surge in coups, with military leaders taking over in Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sudan. Coups have been a defining characteristic of Africa’s political landscape, with 100 successful overthrows in 35 countries between 1952 and the present. The most recent wave is the third in post-independence Africa.

In 2022, an extraordinary AU summit in Equatorial Guinea called for the PSC sanctions sub-committee to be restored and prepared for action.

The ISS worked with the PSC Secretariat to develop a fresh mandate for the sub-committee and provided technical training on implementing, enforcing and monitoring sanctions. According to Kwasi Asante, the former deputy permanent representative of Ghana to the AU, who also chaired the committee’s first training session: ‘The AU sanctions committee was inactive, but ISS expertise helped the PSC to get it functioning.’

‘The ISS was a supportive and valuable resource for AU member state ambassadors and the PSC committee of experts. The impact of the ISS is enormous and immeasurable.’

Sanctions are both preventive and responsive, but are a blunt and ineffective tool if not well designed, implemented, enforced and monitored. Between 2000 and 2022, the AU used sanctions 20 times against 15 member states. But without a committee to advise and monitor sanctions, they were applied inconsistently and with mixed results.

‘The AU sanctions committee was inactive, but ISS expertise helped the PSC to get it functioning’

The revived sanctions sub-committee received its first directive from the PSC in July 2024, when it was tasked to identify external actors supporting the warring factions in Sudan.

‘The ISS built the capacity of AU member state experts to understand sanctions and enable them to advise and inform PSC decisions on how to develop the most effective response to coups,’ Asante says.

‘I developed a lot of respect for the ISS as the institution which helped to shape our sanctions mindset, and impacted us so much. The knowledge we gained from the ISS helped me and my colleagues become a valuable resource on governance deficits, peace and security for many institutions in Ghana and the African Peer Review Mechanism Secretariat.’

The ISS has long advocated for sanctions as a cost-effective mid-point between diplomacy and military force, which can be applied as a deterrent, corrective measure or a coercive tool.

‘The revival of the PSC sanctions sub-committee is an important step that defines the willingness of African leaders to protect democratic governance on the continent,’ says Andrews Atta-Asamoah, Head of the ISS African Peace and Security Governance programme.

‘If AU member states commit to using the sub-committee effectively, actors who resort to coups will be forced to think twice before moving against an elected government.’

The role of the new sanctions sub-committee is to support PSC decisions on imposing and lifting sanctions, ensuring clarity and consistency in their use. It guides the use of sanctions as part of a wider strategy that includes mediation and technical support for the rapid restoration of constitutional order.

The sub-committee gathers information on countries under sanctions, coordinates with regional bodies and the UN, and helps minimise sanctions' impact on the general population.

The sub-committee also monitors political and socio-economic developments across the continent and recommends preventive measures against coups to the PSC. It tracks the impact of sanctions and alleged violations, and identifies people and organisations to be included or removed from the sanctions list. It can also recommend the lifting of sanctions.

For more information, contact:

Andrews Atta-Asamoah, ISS: [email protected]