PSC subcommittees: delivering results or drifting along?
The Peace and Security Council has a handful of subcommittees at its disposal, yet only two are active.
The African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) is the central decision-making organ for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict in Africa. Since it began its work in May 2004, five subcommittees have been established to enhance its performance. These are the Military Staff Committee (MSC), Committee of Experts (CoE), Sanctions Committee, Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development (PCRD) Committee and Counter-terrorism Committee. This article assesses the value of these bodies and how they have enhanced the PSC.
The subcommittees can be broadly categorised into two groups: the active – the MSC and CoE – and the largely inactive, which are the other three. This distinction provides a useful entry point for analysis based on the following four criteria: legal mandate and institutional status, composition and technical capacity, operational activation and functionality, and political momentum and operational support.
Legal mandate and institutional status
The PSC Protocol, under Article 8(5), empowers the Council to establish subsidiary bodies – comprising either individual states or groups – to assist in mediation, legal and military expertise or ad-hoc technical support. These bodies have a legal and advisory role in strengthening the PSC’s decision-making. However, their legal foundation differs, with implications for their instituting authority and preeminence.
Four of the subcommittees fall under Article 8(5), while the MSC is under Article 13 (8 to 12) in the chapter on the African standby force.
- The CoE was established by a PSC decision at the 83rd Meeting in July 2007 emanating from the conclusions of the PSC retreat in Dakar the same month. Its mandate includes the drafting of Council communiqués, concept notes and decisions.
- The Sanctions Committee, established at the 2009 Ezulwini retreat, supports the implementation of PSC Protocol Article 7(g). It monitors political developments, identifies violators, recommends sanctions and advises on their mediation or lifting.
- The Counter-terrorism Committee was established at the 249th meeting in 2010 to guide the PSC’s response to the growing threat of terrorism and violent extremism on the continent.
- The PCRD Committee was also founded in May 2010, at the 230th meeting, with a mandate to support long-term peacebuilding and recovery in post-conflict settings.
Article 8(5) allows the PSC to create such structures as are needed without formal PSC Protocol amendment. They are, therefore, non-permanent and exist only as long as the PSC deems them necessary. This flexibility enables the PSC to adapt to emerging trends such as resurgence of coups or terrorism.
While not labelled a subcommittee in the PSC Protocol, the MSC is mandated to advise the Council on and assist it in military and security requirements. Thus, it has a legal mandate to function as a subcommittee, fulfilling the military advisory role also referenced in Article 8(5). Its enshrinement in the protocol, however, gives it a stronger and more permanent legal status than others have.
Four subcommittees are non-permanent and exist only as long as the PSC deems them necessary
The distinction between the MSC and other subcommittees mirrors the structure of the United Nations (UN). Under Article 47 of the UN Charter, the UN MSC is a standing body, while Article 29 of the Charter gives the UN Security Council discretion to create subsidiary bodies – such as committees, working groups and panels of experts – as it deems necessary.
Despite longstanding debates, including the 2004 recommendation for its dissolution for lack of relevance, the committee persists not least because removing it would require a formal amendment to the UN Charter. Similarly, the AU MSC’s existence is safeguarded as it cannot be dissolved without amendment subject to Article 22(6) of the PSC Protocol and Article 32 of The Constitutive Act, which would include an AU Assembly vote.
Composition and technical capacity
The composition and technical capacity of the subcommittees vary widely. They are often a reflection of the priority member states accord to their AU permanent representations. The 15-member MSC, for example, comprises senior military staff (defence attachés) of permanent missions. Although it has long suffered from the absence of attachés in some permanent missions, this has improved in recent years, with only one mission currently without a dedicated attaché. This reflects increased awareness by states of the crucial role of defence attachés in Africa’s most important multilateral station.
The CoE’s members are 15 mid- to senior-level diplomats, depending on the individual mission’s composition. Experts generally carry out much of the PSC’s technical work to enable decision-making by their respective ambassadors. They assist in drafting documents and decisions in the run-up to Council meetings and work with the secretariat to prepare communiqués and press releases when they chair the PSC.
The military staff and the expert committees are the only ones demonstrating sustained engagement
However, compared to its UN equivalent, the secretariat carries more weight than the CoE in developing communiqués. As the AU does not nurture the practice of pen-holding, the secretariat does the heavy-lifting. This is often a function of short-staffed permanent missions, but also because states do not always provide their diplomats deployed to Addis Ababa with the training needed to perform in a multilateral station. While the Sanctions Committee also has 15 members, the Counter-terrorism Committee and PCRD Committee have five members each, representing the five AU regions.
Operational activation and functionality
Of the five subcommittees, the MSC and the CoE are the only ones demonstrating sustained engagement. The MSC is the most visible as its members also serve on two structured and very active military forums – the African Defence Attachés Forum and the Military Attachés Association. The former was set up in 2020 and brings together all Addis-based African defence attachés. In only a few years, the increasingly formal group has become a crucial gathering in which embassies’ military staff exchange notes and experiences on key defence and security matters. It convenes an annual retreat and sometimes field visits to countries of interest.
The latter is the association of all defence attachés deployed to Addis. It organises regular meetings and workshops to enhance the knowledge and skills of its members. Beyond creating a sense of belonging, involvement in those two forums adds substantive value to the work of the MSC and exposes its members to current thinking and policymaking on peace and security. Since its inception over 20 years ago the MSC has convened 27 meetings and undertaken two field missions, including to Somalia in 2023.
The CoE is the invisible engine of the PSC but is much less noticed from the outside world than its military counterpart. CoE members are also part of the Technical Experts Forum (now known as Forum for African Diplomats in Addis Ababa) that brings together all experts of AU member states. The forum has recently become a formal group that regularly meets for workshops, trainings and other skills-enhancing sessions. It organises annual retreats to foster group identity and mutual understanding.
The CoE operates as a technical drafting unit that supports almost every PSC outcome. These include drafting the PSC budget and the report on PSC activities and compilation of the State of Peace and Security in Africa for the Assembly of Heads of State and Government. It also develops terms of reference and/or reactivation for the sanctions, PCRD and counter-terrorism committees.
By contrast, the last three-mentioned committees are minimally active. The Sanctions Committee, despite being established in 2009, held its inaugural meeting only in June 2024, with its report considered by the PSC two months later.
Committees’ non-permanency is a strength, not a weakness, if they are treated as flexible tools
The Counter-terrorism Committee, created in 2010, was referenced at the PSC’s 1237th meeting in October 2024, which requested a progress update by the first quarter of 2025. However, as of mid-2025, no report has been submitted and no terms of reference have been drafted, indicating a continued lack of activity. Meanwhile, the PCRD Committee has draft terms of reference developed by the AU Political Affairs, Peace and Security Department, pending deliberation by the CoE before consideration at ambassadorial level. This, however, comes five years after the PSC mandated the CoE at the 958th meeting in October 2020 to mandate these terms.
Political momentum and operational support
The two active subcommittees operate on a needs basis, reflecting strong political backing by member states. The other subcommittees struggle to become functional for manifold reasons. For instance, the Sanctions Committee was in 2009 the reflection of an international context in which norms and values of acceptable behaviour were more or less consensual. In the current geopolitical context of power rivalries and norm competition, sanctions are often perceived as biased or a relic of a world order under western hegemony. Several African countries have been subjected to UN sanctions often perceived by governments as unfair.
The recent creation of the Alliance des états du Sahel in West Africa cast another doubtful light on sanctions as their contestation now threatens the very existence of collective security mechanisms. Against this backdrop, it would be important to see how an activated Sanctions Committee would operate and what type of acceptable behaviour sanctions would impose on member states.
The renewed calls for the Counter-terrorism Committee followed a sharp rise in terrorist fatalities, especially in the Sahel, now a global hotspot for violent extremism. Additionally, the 1237th PSC communiqué of October 2024 reveals this disparity in priority. Paragraph 11 merely ‘requests’ the committee’s implementation – without follow-up, even by the first quarter of 2025 – while Paragraph 14 explicitly ‘underlines the importance’ of the AU Ministerial Committee on Counter-terrorism. This signals political prioritisation and potential duplication, as both consult the PSC but differ in authority levels.
The PCRD Committee is about to become active but it is unclear what problem it will solve. Post-conflict reconstruction is as much a matter of strategy as of financial resources. At a time when the international conflict prevention and management toolboxes are being reviewed and traditional donors are retreating, the existence of this committee appears more symbolic.
As security threats evolve, challenges such as cybersecurity, space security and artificial intelligence sovereignty may require the creation of new, albeit temporary, subcommittees. Just as the UN Security Council has discontinued various subsidiary bodies since 1945, the AU should also treat its subcommittees as flexible instruments. Their mandates should be activated only, when necessary, with clear thresholds for success and redundancy.
The future of subcommittees
The PSC’s subcommittees are unevenly functional, being shaped more by political momentum than by clear structural design. While the CoE and MSC remain essential, the others risk becoming symbolic unless purposefully activated and resourced. Their non-permanency is a strength, not a weakness, if they are treated as flexible tools. As threats evolve, a strategic, demand-driven approach to subcommittees can help the PSC remain responsive and efficient in delivering continental peace and security.
