The African continent continues to experience violent conflicts. In 2025 alone, it witnessed more than 15 active violent conflicts and more than 35 non-international armed conflicts (NIACs).
To put this into perspective, more than half of the countries in Africa fall into the Alert or High Alert categories on the Fragile States Index (2026).
This demonstrates the extent of the troubles that modern African states are facing. Yet Aspiration 4 of the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 envisages “A Peaceful and Secure Africa Where Mechanisms for Peaceful Prevention and Resolution of Conflicts will be Functional at all Levels.”
The AU Agenda 2026 may appear a distant ideal, but in reality, the continent is now midway through the second ten-year implementation plan (2024-2033), and the continued prevalence of violent conflicts on the continent brings into question the central role that the African Union should be playing in silencing the guns to promote prosperity on the continent.
The AU is not seen to be actively involved in practical peace-making in African countries with interstate and intrastate conflicts.
On paper, the AU has impressive mantras. For example, we have the following proclamations; “African Solutions to African Problems,” “An Integrated and Prosperous and Peaceful Africa,” “Silencing the Guns,” “I am Because We Are,” and “One Africa, One Voice,” among others.
In addition to these proclamations, the AU has a comprehensive blueprint called the Continental Structural Conflict Prevention Framework to provide a coordinated approach to conflict prevention on the continent, the Continental Youth, Peace, and Security Framework, the Continental Women, Peace, and Security Framework, and the African Governance Architecture, which aims to promote and entrench ideals of democratic governance, respect for human rights, and other progressive values in all its member states, among other important strategic documents in pursuit of peace on the continent.
One begins to question the relevance of the AU against a backdrop where peace building and peace-making efforts are being exported to the US and other Western countries, as in the case of the DRC/Rwanda conflict.
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It is the object of this opinion article to suggest that any expenditure of effort and labour toward peace building should begin and end with an ecological approach. Ecological efforts toward peace building begin with the understanding that solutions to problems should be home-grown. The emphasis on home-grown solutions reflects the belief that blood is thicker than water.
In the African context, there is a web of inter-relatedness through history and geography. The history and geography of Africans should naturally bring African leaders together to appreciate the values of the moral economy.
No community can exist without conflict, because wherever there is interaction among human beings, conflict is bound to happen. Conflict can either make or break a community, depending on how it is handled. Given what is happening in the DRC, where the constant exchange of gunfire between the national army and M23 marks and punctuates the skies, the AU should lose sleep over this brouhaha and find ways and means to ensure durable peace in the DRC.
Among other things, the AU’s mandate is to promote unity, peace, security, and development across Africa by ensuring that Africans drive solutions to their own challenges.
This accountability watchdog role of the AU is not coming into play. Examples include the Ethiopia/Eritrea border war (1998-2000), Libya (2011 Civil War), the ongoing DRC/Rwanda conflict, and Sudan/South Sudan post-2011 disputes.
The AU’s predecessor, the OAU, failed dismally to intervene meaningfully in the Rwanda genocide, and in Darfur (Sudan, early 2000s), the AU deployed a small monitoring mission that lacked resources. In Cameroon (Anglophone Crisis, ongoing), the AU has issued statements with little concrete action. In almost all the above scenarios, the AU has either been overshadowed by the UN or the US.
The AU has, to a very large extent, been dependent on technical, financial, and logistical support from the EU, the UN, or the US. Sources of the AU’s support are, by and large, not well-meaning, as they have historically been sources of Africa’s problems through ideologies of liberalism, neo-liberalism, debt colonialism, imperialism, sanctions, globalisation, protectionism, and the extraction of ancient wealth, which is used through the Bretton Woods institutions to further stifle Africa’s development.
The AU, as a continental body that seeks to reflect the vision of a united and self-reliant Africa through peace and security, political integration, economic development, social and cultural cooperation, and global representation, should play a primary role in peace-building in Africa.
This argument for the AU’s primacy in conflict prevention, management, and resolution is eclipsed by the fact that it is grossly under-resourced to be where it should be in silencing the guns and providing ecological solutions to ecological problems, which paves the way for the Global North to intervene with both tangible and intangible resources.
There is a bidirectional link between finance and influence; once the Global North intervenes, it does so with its strategic interests as the bigger picture. The AU should recognise that real power lies in the collective. African countries that make up the AU are rich in mineral resources, fauna, and flora.
The AU should build research and development and monitoring and evaluation units into its structures to assess the capacities of every African country and develop buffer resources to address African problems. This approach can be modelled on the World Bank and the IMF.
Every African country, depending on its capacity, should ring-fence a specific economic metric to grow an African Bank whose key functions would be to provide financial support to countries across various sectors of the economy.
The envisaged African Bank could also have a mandate for peace and security, because there can never be meaningful development without the former and the latter.
The moon cannot shine brighter than the sun; similarly, why should foreigners be chief peace mediators in African conflicts?
The problems of having the Global North mediate in African conflicts include loss of ownership or sovereignty, as solutions imposed from outside often lack legitimacy among communities; cultural disconnect, as foreign mediators may not fully understand African traditions, language, and dynamics; political interests; dependency; and historical sensitivities.
In summary, the AU must be actively engaged in solving African problems because only Africans can fully understand the continent’s historical, cultural, and political realities.
The necessary policy and institutional frameworks are already in place. What is needed is for the continental body to move from rhetoric to sustained action with tangible deliverables. By overseeing conflict prevention, management, and resolution in Africa, the AU will lend legitimacy to Africa’s social transformation and economic development.
The Africa we want is only possible when African agency is authentic, holistic, pragmatic, genuine, and rooted in African ingenuity.
- Nicholas Aribino (PhD) is a student of law and commentator on gender, public policy, child rights, conflict prevention, inclusive and special needs education and international studies , teaching across multiple universities in Zimbabwe. He writes in his personal capacity. Email: [email protected]; Cell: +263 715617095
- David Makwerere (PhD) is a peace and governance practitioner with research interests in peacebuilding, regional integration, social justice, structural conflict prevention, and social inclusion. He writes in his personal capacity. Email: [email protected]; Cell: +263772596562
