Two key priorities for the AU’s Luanda summit
Strengthening mechanisms without improving organisational nodes of influence will keep the African Union normatively strong but operationally weak.
The AU summit on strengthening mechanisms for conflict prevention and resolution, scheduled for 29 to 30 August 2026, is an invaluable opportunity for reinvigoration of AU capacity for collective security. While mechanisms are crucial, the AU’s actual influence lies in the willingness to act collectively and back its mechanisms in line with the Solemn Declaration on a Common African Defence and Security Policy (CADSP) adopted two decades ago. This policy highlights the indivisibility of African security, which requires African states to share response to threats rather than treating them as the responsibility of the affected state.
These terms were further codified in the AU Non-aggression and Common Defence Pact of 2005. Article 1c of the pact maintains that any aggression or threat of aggression against any member state shall be deemed to constitute a threat or aggression against all member states.
CADSP and the pact are not similar to the automatic North Atlantic Treaty Organisation-style collective defence clause (Article 5), in which members send troops when one of their own is under threat. But the CADSP and the pact require members to act collectively through the AU and its Peace and Security Council (PSC), a framework that defines the concepts ‘Pan-Africanism’ and ‘African solutions to African problems’.
As the continent struggles to address security threats, leaders must consider the pitfalls of backtracking on collective security and regain member states’ interest in the approach. Hence, the dual AU priorities in Luanda must address fragmentation and seek a unified response.
Collective backing
Over the past decade, collective responses in Africa have suffered from growing nationalism. While national interests are the foundations of a realist world order, rising apathy and reluctance to intervene in the internal affairs of member states run counter to CADSP-defined interconnected security threats.
Leaders must reflect on the pitfalls of backtracking on collective security and regain interest in a unified response
Currently, the AU and regional economic communities (RECs) seem hamstrung, not for lack of mechanisms and frameworks, but due to limited member-state backing for AU decisions and interventions. Since 2016, the AU has suggested that appropriately streamlined mechanisms, institutions and frameworks can achieve peace in Africa. Yet the dynamics of multilateral peace infrastructures, including United Nations systems, show that multilateral bodies are successful only when decisions and interventions are actively backed by member states, especially those with influence over the conflict parties.
The United Nations, for instance, is only able to mediate in the Libyan crisis and the Western Sahara issue with the support of influential United Nations Security Council members, especially the P5. Due to limited influence of the AU and the PSC, the AU has been unable for a decade to lead a national reconciliation dialogue among rival parties in Libya.
In both Liberia and Sierra Leone, cessation of hostilities was achieved not so much through Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mechanisms but through the willingness of influential countries such as Nigeria to press and sacrifice for peace. Similarly, the successes of the AU and RECs in conflicts such as the unravelling South Sudan revitalised peace deal of 2018 were possible only when regional mediators were backed by threats of PSC and United Nations Security Council sanctions.
Conflict persists when warring parties see divisions and a lack of unity among regional bodies such as the AU and Intergovernmental Authority on Development, including members' reluctance to push for peace. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, the AU and RECs seem to lack leverage over the warring parties, beyond hoping that goodwill prevails or external partners exert pressure for peace. Mechanisms and frameworks exist to intervene in these countries, but there is limited backing from influential members for sanctions and decisive action on the belligerents.
In the Congo crisis, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have conducted suboptimal, halfhearted military campaigns against M23 rebel activity that have had little impact on the status quo. While the AU is mediating, its influence is constrained by divisions among RECs and by its inability to unify the RECs' approaches.
Conflict persists when warring parties see divisions and a lack of unity among regional bodies
Collective response by RECs and the AU could have mitigated the involvement of neighbouring countries that undermine the country’s territorial integrity. CADSP and the pact require member states to refrain from aggression against fellow members, in line with Article 4(a & g) of the AU Constitutive Act. Members are also to ensure that their national territory is not used as a base for aggression or subversion against another African state.
Fragmentation trap
The Luanda summit should encourage AU members to develop a unified response that does not abandon affected states as they seek solutions to their crises. Reaction to violent extremism reveals the extent to which the AU and RECs tend to encourage fragmented responses that reduce the optimal capacity of Africa’s collective response.
Initially, al-Shabaab posed the most significant threat in Africa. The two-decade-long consistent AU and Intergovernmental Authority on Development effort helped contain the threat in Somalia and sustain the Somalia transitional government and subsequent elected governments. While the AU Somalia missions are severely constrained financially and operationally, the collective AU effort since 2006, including the role of neighbouring countries, has hindered al-Shabaab's expansion.
The Sahel situation is different. When violent extremism gained a foothold in Mali following the 2012/2013 Tuareg rebellion, the AU and ECOWAS struggled to deploy the African-led International Support Mission to Mali. This stemmed from political tensions between the two African Peace and Security Architecture stakeholders. After six months, the mission was taken over by the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali. Meanwhile, the extremists continued to expand beyond Mali into Burkina Faso and Niger. By 2017, al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in the Sahel had formed the Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin alliance.
The AU, which sought to address the problem through the Nouakchott Process, failed to go beyond pledges of solidarity and promises of deploying a force in the region, as decided in 2015. As the 11-member Nouakchott Process seemed reluctant, the affected members established the now-defunct G5 Sahel Force, a weak ad hoc mechanism, rather than an optimal collective African response. Neither the AU nor ECOWAS provided funding nor troops required to support the force.
A threat against one is a threat against all. States must respond economically, politically and militarily
Extremism has since moved beyond the Sahel, affecting coastal countries, especially Benin, Togo and Nigeria, with an increasing convergence with Lake Chad Basin extremists. In response, affected members launched the Accra Initiative. Similarly, the Boko Haram threat is addressed by a fragment of APSA, the Multinational Joint Task Force Against Boko Haram, while the AU secures external financing for the mission.
In Mozambique, SADC responded to the rise of extremist groups in Cabo Delgado by deploying the SADC Mission in Mozambique in July 2021. As funding and logistical constraints became increasingly apparent, the body sought greater support from the AU, which endorsed the deployment in January 2022, providing financial and military assistance.
Although SADC began phasing out the mission in December 2023 and completed it by July 2024, the intervention did not resolve the insurgency. Since then, no other collective African force has been deployed, although Rwanda has continued its bilateral military support of Mozambique.
The hope for Luanda
AU members must adhere to CADSP and the pact: a threat against one is a threat against all. This requires that members amplify AU prevention and mediation initiatives by offering economic, political and military leverage needed for success. This means that member states, via the PSC and AU Assembly, should, for instance, impose sanctions on spoilers of peace.
In this vein, Uganda and Kenya must act against antagonists in South Sudan, including freezing the assets of warring parties, without becoming bogged down by concerns about the economic implications for their countries. The incentive is the durable peace that such sanctions could bring to the region and neighbouring countries.
In line with the aspirations of the African Economic Community, the AU and RECs must set aside their organisational interests and work jointly, pooling resources to achieve optimal impact in crisis areas. The ASF framework is operationally ready, but the AU and RECs haven’t committed the required finance and will to deploy it where needed. Additionally, AU and REC interventions should be less about who leads and more about projecting a joint show of force and unity of purpose.
