PSC Interview: Key regional and continental bodies at risk of obsolescence, cautions Aning
The relevance of the African Union and Economic Community of West African States hangs in the balance.
Professor Kwesi Aning, the former director of the faculty of academic affairs and research at Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Ghana shared his views with PSC Report. Unless the AU and ECOWAS break free from bureaucratic inertia, engage the continent’s youth and apply their own norms without bias, he insists, they risk becoming obsolete amid rising insecurity and citizen disengagement.
Africa seems to be regressing in management of peace and security challenges. What is going wrong?
The African Union (AU) and its regional institutions, which should be spearheading responses to these issues, have over time become almost ossified. Consequently, they have not been able to transform themselves or transcend their foundational structures and mandates to deal with contemporary threats.
The Peace and Security Council (PSC), for example, has a clear mandate and fairly established working methods. However, the demographics and challenges that informed the thinking of its framers have changed dramatically over the last two decades. Not only has Africa’s youth population increased significantly, but there is a new generation that has little to no understanding of how the AU betters their lives.
Materials on AU and PSC’s norms and values must be accessible and resonate with citizens
The AU, and particularly the PSC may be overlooking several blindspots. First are the continent’s demographic shifts. If one were to ask how often, over its two decades, the PSC has substantively discussed demography and the youth bulge, the answer would probably be disappointing. How, then, does one adequately address or formulate appropriate responses to the challenges emerging from these changes?
Second is the routinisation of conflict discussions in the AU. Member states can predict the content of communiqués almost before meetings take place. Over time, this predictability has diminished the effectiveness, relevance and impact of the PSC and AU in improving the lives of African citizens.
Not pleasant to admit, but when you work with the PSC in Addis Ababa, attending high-level meetings and navigating regulations and protocols that states have voluntarily adopted, you see Africa through a very narrow lens.
Once your service ends and you return to society, you’re confronted with the stark realisation that very few people know, understand or care about what you’ve been working on for years. How do we translate the rarefied discourses in continental policy circles into practical, useful, operational and impactful policies for those we aim to serve?
For me, the key lies in language. The AU and PSC must translate the norms and values underlying their work on issues such as climate change, gender and silencing the guns into accessible, context-relevant materials that resonate with citizens. AU documents must be repackaged to make them understandable and actionable. Addressing this communication gap is vital if the Council is to retain relevance in an increasingly crowded global-attention economy.
Where does the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) stand amid these weaknesses?
The AES didn’t appear from nowhere. Observers of West Africa could see something simmering beneath the surface. Many so-called democratic states in the region were plagued by widespread corruption, rising extremist threats and public disillusionment.
Those charged with democracy in these states undermined what they had fought for by their graft and incompetence. Trade unions began speaking out. Religious leaders started challenging authority. Corruption had become so pervasive that it affected even the state’s willingness to fund the fight against terrorism.
Leadership deficits have rendered ECOWAS more a club of presidents than a community of people
Even worse was the influx of security assistance from foreign actors. At one point, Mali and Niger were hosting security force assistance providers from more than nine countries, with little local capacity building. Apart from not being tailored to the needs of AES countries, they were not shaped by their geopolitical factors or situations on the ground, but rather by the interests of western capitals.
Consequently, interventions often ignored local knowledge and institutions and further weakened recipient states. Security threats in countries such as Mali and Niger were viewed not through a shared regional strategy but through the interests of external parties.
ECOWAS’s responses reflect a bitter irony. As the organisation marks 50 years, it is confronting a deep internal legitimacy crisis. Even though its founding members, except Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, were military regimes at the time, the content of their founding speeches reflected visionary leadership and deep commitment to integration.
One wonders whether the region’s leaders today possess the moral authority to speak similarly. National and regional leadership deficits have rendered ECOWAS more a club of presidents than a community of people.
This is reflected in the coups d’état. While Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger leaders failed to deliver for their constituents, ECOWAS did not feel the need to find solutions to the challenges. All suffered from exploitative natural resources extraction by foreign companies.
Then came the harsh response right after the coups, with ECOWAS swiftly threatening sanctions and military intervention – especially in Niger – despite the unique local complexities. Ironically, the very tool the organisation threatened to use – the ECOWAS Standby Force – was largely non-functional, with a non-existent logistics base except on paper.
This revealed not only a strategic miscalculation but a lack of awareness and preparedness. AES members could no longer do business with ECOWAS, hence their exit. In fact, some AES countries, particularly Niger, seem to have understood fully the complex geopolitics of the region and how its ethnic formations span borders and would complicate any external military intervention.
How has AES withdrawal affected ECOWAS?
So far, the tangible impacts are limited, but they are not trivial. First, economically, AES countries have introduced tariffs of between 0.5% and 0.8% on imports from ECOWAS states. That might seem minor, but it’s symbolic. Secondly, these countries are beginning to carve out a separate identity. For example, immigration desks in AES airports now separate AES citizens from ECOWAS travellers, although the visa-free travel arrangements of ECOWAS continue.
That said, as a Ghanaian travelling in the region, I have not experienced hostility due to my ECOWAS identity. This tells us something: we must disaggregate political rhetoric from people-to-people relations. Citizens are still connecting across borders, even as political leaders posture.
The Trump era geopolitical environment has become transactional, with norms often disregarded
Moreover, ECOWAS countries such as Togo are working pragmatically with AES members by extending port demurrage from 14 to 40 days and collaborating in trade, joint military exercises and intelligence sharing. This cooperation is likely to increase in the region, even if no other countries formally join the AES bloc.
What options does ECOWAS have to address the situation?
Right now, ECOWAS and the AU are boxed in. Their earlier choices have limited their ability to resolve the crisis. One option is track-two diplomacy, leveraging influential traditional and religious leaders who understand sociocultural nuances. In Niger, for example, a respected Nigerian religious figure, the Yaa Naa in Ghana or a traditional leader such as the king of the Mossi in Burkina Faso could open channels for dialogue. But overall, a hybrid approach combining formal diplomacy with the involvement of traditional leaders could make a difference.
In my view, no discussions about reintegration will bear fruit in the next five years. But that delay should prompt serious introspection. Why is the world angrier with the AES countries for using the ‘gun’ than it is with leaders who use the ‘pen’ or manipulate national constitutions to achieve similar ends?
What are the major lessons for the AU?
A pressing question is what will happen if these military regimes organise elections, as in Gabon, and win. Will that legitimise their rule? This is an ethical dilemma that needs the PSC’s leadership. We also need to reform how the AU and regional economic communities communicate their work to the people and ensure that citizens understand how these institutions work to improve their lives or are relevant to their lives.
The AU often justifies inconsistencies in its norm enforcement by citing the peculiarities of different country contexts. But the reality is that member states voluntarily signed up to the AU’s principles, including zero tolerance for unconstitutional changes of government. That commitment should not be negotiable, regardless of the country.
Even though the Trump era geopolitical environment has become transactional, with norms often disregarded, that disruption presents an opportunity. The AU can reassert itself as a principled global actor if it holds firm on its own rules. Achieving that will, however, require bold, coherent and visionary leadership from the continent’s institutions.
