Africa’s relationship with United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has come full circle—not because the continent has returned to where it started, but because, after several decades of developing its own peacekeeping ambitions and capabilities, it has once again had to reckon with the continuing centrality of the UN. This relationship went through various stages: an initial phase in which African states largely looked to the UN to assume the peacekeeping responsibility, reflecting its Charter-based mandate, operational capabilities and access to resources; a timid foray into the world of peacekeeping in the early 1990s, with the authorisation and deployment of operations of limited duration and scope; the fundamental changes that accompanied the advent of the African Union (AU) in July 2000 and the adoption of the Peace and Security Council Protocol two years later, with the full-fledged introduction of peace support operations (PSOs) into the AU toolbox; and, more recently, a sober recognition of the limits to the organization’s ambitions, linked notably to logistical and financial constraints, bringing it back, in some respects, to the caution that marked the earlier period and underscoring the continuing centrality of the UN.