Tomorrow (15 October), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) are scheduled to hold their 7^th annual consultative meeting. This will be the first meeting to take place following the decision during the 6^th informal consultative meeting held on 13 November 2023 to institutionalise the annual consultations and elevate it into a formal meeting.

The consultative meeting will be co-chaired by Mohamed Omar Gad, Permanent Representative of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the AU and Chairperson of the PSC for October 2024, Sérgio França Danese, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the UN and Chairperson of the UN PBC. It is expected that the consultative meeting will commence with opening remarks from Bankole Adeoye, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, and Elizabeth Spehar, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support.

The first agenda item of the 7^th annual consultative meeting involves a review of the status of implementation of the joint statement of the 6^th informal consultative meeting. It is to be recalled that the joint statement called for ensuring adequate, predictable and sustained financing for peacebuilding, noting that the amount of voluntary contributions has not been sufficient to meet increasing demands for the support of the Peacebuilding Fund. In this respect, one critical development that the 7^th consultative meeting is expected to welcome is the decision of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to establish the Peacebuilding Account, a dedicated multi-year special account, as a modality for financing the Peacebuilding Fund. UNGA Resolution 78/257 on Investing in Prevention and Peacebuilding further decided for the first time ‘to approve $50 million of assessed contributions per annum, under grants and contributions, to fund the Peacebuilding Account, starting 1 January 2025.’ Beyond welcoming this decision, it is expected that the PSC and the PBS will call for enhancing the funding base for peacebuilding including through partnerships with international financial institutions.

In light of this major development in expanding the role of peacebuilding, the other element of the joint statement from the 6^th informal consultative meeting that is expected to receive attention is the support for priorities identified and communicated by the PSC. It would be of interest for this year’s informal consultation to consider and agree on processes for identifying priorities and the modalities for coordination in the identification of such priorities to benefit from the Peacebuilding Fund.

The second agenda item focuses on achievements and challenges of peacebuilding and sustaining peace in Africa. It is envisaged that Egypt, supported by Equatorial Guinea, will take the lead in making a statement on this agenda item. The development of National Action Plans on Youth and Women, Peace and Security, implementation of national truth and reconciliation processes of the ones in the Gambia and the Central African Republic and security sector and other reform processes in Lesotho can be mentioned as good examples in this respect. Challenges to peacebuilding are many and they include, among others, an increase in conflicts, most notably those involving terrorist groups such as in the Sahel and West Africa; collapse of transitions and peace processes leading to relapse to conflicts such as in Sudan; geopolitical tensions undermining multilateral cooperation critical to successful peacebuilding; and lack of inclusive political consensus and settlement that anchors effective peacebuilding processes.

The third agenda item of the 7^th consultative meeting is transitions from Peace Support Operations to Peacebuilding in Africa. It is envisaged that Uganda, supported by Morocco, will make a statement on the subject. This agenda seeks to speak to recent experiences on the continent involving the untimely ending or departure of peacekeeping operations or their ongoing drawdown. It is to be recalled that the UN mission to Mali (MINUSMA) departed Mali at the end of 2023 following a disagreement with the transitional government in Mali. Similarly, the UNITAMS, the UN Mission that replaced UNAMID, was terminated in December 2023. Another UN mission, MONUSCO in the DRC is in the process of a drawdown. One can similarly mention the end of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM). In all of these cases, concerns about the emergence of a security and peacebuilding vacuum have been raised. Proper contextualisation of these trends is critical to draw the right lessons from them. First, they manifest the mismatch between what national authorities and host communities expect of these missions and what these missions are designed and able to deliver. Second and related to the first, they reflect an emerging trend in which national authorities seek to bend the operation of these missions towards their preferred political and security choices, focusing on regime interest and survival. Third, they also manifest the poor state of support on the part of the mandating authority, the UN Security Council, to these missions. Finally, the unplanned departure of these missions also shows a lack of adequate coordination not only between national and international actors but also between the AU and the UN in facilitating the effective functioning of these missions.

These issues underscore the need for addressing the demand and supply side crises relating to peace support operations at the host state and UN levels as well as the challenge of close coordination between the AU and UN. While addressing the challenges facing peace support operations, particularly UN peacekeeping in Africa which requires dealing with the foregoing issues, consideration should be given to how peacebuilding can help fill in some of the gaps that are left by the departure of these missions. Additionally, to mitigate the impact of the untimely withdrawal of peacekeeping operations, the PSC and the PBC may underscore the importance of integrating peacebuilding into the mandate of peace support operations from the outset.