AU Commission reform must align with Africa’s ambitious agenda

The African Union needs more commissioners, not fewer, to efficiently handle the scope and complexity of continental challenges.

Published on 21 November 2025 in ISS Today

By

Paul-Simon Handy
Regional Director East Africa and Representative to the African Union, ISS Addis Ababa

When the African Union Commission’s (AUC) reform started nearly a decade ago, it was presented as a historic opportunity to modernise the institution, sharpen its focus and enhance its efficiency.

Led by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, it aimed to reshape the AUC into a leaner, more coherent body, equipped to carry out the continental agenda. The reform’s central feature was reducing the number of commissioners from eight to six, by merging departments such as Political Affairs with Peace and Security, and Trade and Industry with Economic Affairs.

The main goal was to create an agile, streamlined AUC that works efficiently with the continent’s various regional economic communities (RECs). Clearer mandates, better coordination and institutions fit for purpose were the priority.

However six years later, the results are mixed, and in several areas, problematic.

Creating the Political Affairs, Peace, and Security (PAPS) department as a single mega-commission was highly emblematic of the reform. Yet the rationale for the decision remains unclear. In practice, the merger has produced a department where managing conflict outweighs preventing it. Short-term responses to crises overshadow long-term interventions that favour accountable governance and policy foresight.

These vital longer-term functions would allow the AU to anticipate and mitigate conflict before it escalates. Striking internal asymmetries have also appeared: an oversized Peace Support Operations Division (responsible for peacekeeping) outweighs the entire governance and conflict-prevention directorate, leaving preventive work under-resourced and institutionally marginalised.

Six years on, the results of AU Commission reforms are mixed, and in several areas, problematic

Also, some key units have become collateral damage in the reform process. The Continental Early Warning System, a central pillar of the security architecture, was literally ‘forgotten’, and in theory is now the responsibility of regional desks. The AU Border Programme also disappeared despite border governance, cross-border mobility, integrated border management and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) becoming central to continental integration.

The same inconsistencies affect the trade and economic clusters. The merger of Economic Affairs with Trade and Industry could have brought industrialisation, trade policy and economic governance under one umbrella. Instead, the simultaneous establishment of the AfCFTA Secretariat in Accra – with an unusual degree of autonomy – has led to competing centres of power.

While the AUC is technically responsible for trade and economic policy, the AfCFTA Secretariat takes care of implementation. But each mobilises resources independently and operates from different locations. The result has been duplication, fragmentation and rivalry. While a specialised body to implement AfCFTA was justified, the Secretariat’s autonomy and physical distance from AU headquarters in Addis Ababa have weakened coherence and blurred accountability.

Finally, AU-REC relations remain ambiguous despite agreement on a protocol governing interactions reached in 2020. Institutional and political competition over who does what, when and why persists. A recent example is the Great Lakes crisis, where divergences between the East African Community, Southern African Development Community, and AU led to an unusual and thus far ineffective, mediation framework.

As a political organisation, the AU must demonstrate its economic worth to its members, who should be clear on why they are better off inside than outside the organisation. Taken together, these inconsistencies suggest it’s time to revisit some of the assumptions on which the AUC reform was grounded.

Crisis responses overshadow long-term interventions that favour accountable governance and policy foresight

To start with, is the reduction to six commissioners appropriate? The scope and complexity of African priorities have increased: climate security, digital governance, pandemics, peace operations, migration, continental trade, industrialisation and the geopolitics of critical minerals are more complex today than ever. Returning to eight or even more commissioners could avoid diluting or structurally marginalising key mandates.

PAPS’ creation should also be revisited. Governance, democracy, transitional justice, conflict prevention and early warning require their own institutional ecosystem. PAPS is overwhelmingly oriented towards reactive crisis management. A restored, strengthened governance and prevention portfolio would reinforce Africa’s long-term conflict management capacity and give meaning to the AU’s early-warning mandate.

Relationships between the Department of Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Mining, the AfCFTA Secretariat and AU Development Agency-NEPAD also require clarification. Having many autonomous bodies with overlapping functions undermines continental coherence.

If their autonomy cannot be reversed, their roles must be clarified: the AUC sets policy, which specialised entities implement. Coordination must be institutionalised, not dependent on personalities or informal arrangements, as it currently is.

The AU should consider creating a commission responsible for partnerships and multilateral engagement. Africa and the AU’s diplomatic landscape have expanded dramatically to include Europe, China, the United States, Türkiye, India, the Gulf, BRICS+, the G20, the UN and climate frameworks. Member states’ bilateral interests are important, but in certain settings, continental coordination can better amplify African influence.

Another area requiring review is internal security and mobility. Responsibilities are scattered across multiple departments: border issues under PAPS, migration within Social Affairs, displacement under Humanitarian Affairs, and police cooperation within AFRIPOL.

A restored, strengthened governance and prevention portfolio would give meaning to the AU’s early-warning mandate

Meanwhile, the Free Movement Protocol struggles to progress, partly due to security concerns. An internal security and mobility commissioner could bring border management, identity systems, justice cooperation, movement of persons and counter-terrorism under one coherent umbrella, aligned with Africa’s integration goals.

There is also a strategic principle that must be reaffirmed: specialised agencies exist to execute the AUC’s policies, not run independent agendas. Some agencies have become de facto centres of autonomous policy development, fuelled by independently found resources. This weakens AU policy coherence. Resource mobilisation should be coordinated through the commission to prevent fragmentation and institutional drift.

Restructuring the AUC was a necessary step, but reform is a process, not an event. The AU’s success depends on its ability to evaluate, adjust and course correct. The AUC’s structure must reflect Africa’s evolving realities, not past assumptions.

It is time to take stock and refine the reform process. This will allow the AUC to fulfil its mandate with clarity and strategic purpose as the central engine of Africa’s multilateralism.


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