Tomorrow (3 November), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1377^th meeting, an open session on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) in Africa.

Following opening remarks by Antonin Benjamin Biéké, Special Envoy of Côte d’Ivoire to the AU and PSC Chairperson for November, Bankole Adeoye, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), will deliver a statement. A representative of Burundi, the AU Champion for Youth, Peace and Security, will also deliver a statement. Vanessa Nakate, the newly appointed AU Youth Envoy, is also expected to make her inaugural statement. The AU Youth Ambassadors for Peace from the five regions are also envisaged to update the PSC on their activities.

The PSC institutionalised its annual YPS open session at its 807^th meeting in November 2018. Its most recent dedicated engagement, the 1310^th meeting of 11 November 2025, addressed migration, youth, peace and security. Council requested draft guidelines for developing and implementing National Action Plans (NAPs) on YPS and a comprehensive study on migration, youth, peace and security. The upcoming session follows the commemoration of the Africa Youth Day marked annually on 1 November. This session also comes in the context of the 20^th anniversary of the African Youth Charter, which is set to be observed in the context of the 6^th Pan-African Youth Forum, scheduled for 16–20 November 2026 in Addis Ababa under the theme ‘Reflecting, Reimagining, and Repositioning the African Youth Charter’. Last year marked the tenth anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 (2015) in December 2025. It also precedes. The Forum, themed, commemorates the Charter’s 20^th anniversary. These milestones invite assessment of outstanding PSC decisions and mechanisms, including the African Youth Ambassadors for Peace (AYAP), WiseYouth Network and Youth for Peace Africa programme.

In terms of follow-up on the previous session, a notable development was the designation on 10 August 2026 of Commissioner Amma Adomaa Twum-Amoah as Special Envoy on the Situation of Stranded Migrants and Refugees, focusing on efforts to revitalise the AU–EU–UN Tripartite Task Force.

It is also a welcome development that, after remaining vacant since the end of 2024, the AU Commission Chairperson reinstated the position of the AU Youth Envoy with the announcement of the appointment of Vanessa Nakate, a prominent youth climate advocate from Uganda.

The fifth AU Continental Dialogue on YPS and Women, Peace and Security (WPS) was held from 10 to 12 August 2026 in Bujumbura, Burundi, under the theme ‘Water, Peace and Inclusive Leadership in Africa’. Convened in the context of the AU’s 2026 Theme of the Year, the Dialogue brought attention to the role of youth and women in resource governance, conflict prevention and peacebuilding, particularly where water insecurity, climate shocks and resource-related disputes compound insecurity.

An outcome of the Bujumbura Dialogue was the Bujumbura Declaration, adopted on 11 August 2026 by the Youth Creative Consortium (YCC) during a side event. Apart from recognising the contribution that youth are already making as ‘strategic partners, decision-makers and agents of change ‘, the Declaration calls for linking ‘community-based early warning initiatives’ with national, regional and continental early-warning systems, alongside structured engagement between AU institutions and credible youth-led organisations.’

It is clear that notable progress has been registered in terms of putting in place institutional arrangements dedicated to youth. In this regard, tomorrow’s session is expected to also review the activities of existing continental mechanisms, including AYAP, the WiseYouth Network and the Youth for Peace Africa programme, alongside broader institutional arrangements for youth engagement, including the AUC Chairperson’s Special Envoy for Youth and the AGA–APSA Platform. The critical issue is whether these mechanisms, within their respective mandates, provide meaningful opportunities for youth engagement in preventive diplomacy, political dialogue, mediation and post-conflict reconstruction. The fifth APRM Youth Symposium Outcome Report, published in August 2026, similarly identifies a gap between participation and influence, calling for efforts to ‘mainstream youth input to mandates, budgets, decisions and monitoring systems’. Council may therefore seek an account of the practical contributions of the plethora of mechanisms put in place to peace processes, including the extent to which youth participation influences decisions and outcomes.

A key issue for the YPS agenda that is of interest for PSC’s session is the norm-to-implementation gap, not least of all in advancing one of the pillars of the AU’s YPS continental framework, participation. The PSC, in various instances, including at its 1183rd session, emphasised the need ‘for the AU Commission to institutionalise the inclusion of the youth, particularly the AYAPs and WiseYouth Network, in preventive diplomacy missions and AU Election Observer Missions.’ Despite the inclusion of AYAPs in election observations during the past two years, the level of participation of youth in peace processes did not go beyond what some call tokenism. This gap between institutional and policy commitment and the reality was echoed during the August 2026 Dialogue in Bujumbura, where Bakary Sonko, AYAP for West Africa, underscored the distinction between policy adoption and implementation, as reflected in the account of his intervention that ‘adoption is not implementation’.

In terms of advancing policy action at the national level, at the UNGA high-level side event, ‘Advancing the Bujumbura Outcomes: Youth, Peace and Security in Africa’, held on 21 September 2026, it was reported that eight African countries had adopted YPS NAPs, over 15 were drafting them, and at least ten others had formally committed to the process. The reported progress may be assessed against the AU’s continental targets for 25% of Member States to develop youth-led and youth-centred NAPs by 2024 and 50% by 2029. This data illustrates that the pace of domestication of the YPS agenda through NAPs is off AU’s target.

Another issue worth following up during tomorrow’s session with respect to advancing domestication of the YPS agenda at national level is the state of execution of the PSC’s request, in various sessions since its 933^rd session and reiterated at its 1183^rd session, for the AU Commission ‘to develop a Guideline that would assist Member States to accelerate their efforts to develop the National Action Plans (NAPS).’ The drafting and technical validation of the guidelines have been finalised during 2024 and 2025. The AU Youth for Peace Programme reportedly indicated during a meeting held in Gaborone, Botswana, on 28-29 July that the NAP Development and Implementation Guidelines are awaiting adoption by the PSC.

The proliferation of platforms on youth also deserves attention in reviewing state of the YPS agenda. In addition to the YPS framework and the mechanisms noted above, there is the AGA–APSA Youth Engagement Strategy. At the Platform’s February 2026 political meeting, Commissioner Bankole Adeoye acknowledged the implementation challenge, observing that ‘We do have the strategy already, the AGA-APSA Youth Engagement Strategy; we just need to action it’. Beyond the question of implementation, there is also the issue of coherence and coordination across various YPS arrangements within the AU. While these initiatives provide institutional and capacity-building frameworks, their contribution to YPS will ultimately depend on whether they translate into opportunities for young people to influence governance, conflict prevention and peacebuilding decisions.

Financing remains a major challenge for implementing the YPS agenda, particularly for local youth-led peacebuilding organisations. The UN Peacebuilding Fund’s 2025 YPS thematic review identifies persistent administrative and eligibility barriers limiting direct access to financing for youth-led organisations, underscoring the need for more accessible and flexible funding arrangements. An African example is the Fund-supported initiative in the Burkina Faso–Mali–Niger border region, which provided microgrants to local organisations, prioritising youth-led initiatives for community improvements and sustainable livelihoods. More recently, at their 27–28 October 2026 consultation in Accra, ECOWAS ministers resolved to establish a regional YPS Basket Fund to mobilise ‘predictable and sustainable financing’ from Member States, development partners, financial institutions and the private sector, alongside developing a costed and measurable Regional Action Plan on YPS. Council may therefore underline the need for accessible and sustained financing, with youth participation in setting funding priorities, allocating resources and assessing outcomes, so that investments translate into lasting institutional capacity and tangible peacebuilding impact.

The expected outcome is a communiqué. The PSC may welcome the outcomes of the fifth Continental Dialogue on YPS and WPS, including proposals for strengthening youth participation in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Council may call on the AU Commission to expedite the submission of the guidelines for developing and implementing NAPs on YPS and provide updates on their adoption and implementation. It may also underscore the need to strengthen coordination among AYAP, the WiseYouth Network, Youth for Peace Africa programme, AGA–APSA Platform and RECs/RMs to ensure meaningful youth engagement in mediation, early warning and peacebuilding processes. The PSC may further emphasise the importance of mainstreaming youth perspectives in country-specific deliberations. Council may call for predictable and accessible financing for youth-led peacebuilding initiatives and concrete measures to translate existing commitments into meaningful youth influence on peace and security decisions.