Briefing on the 10-Year Country Structural Vulnerability and Resilience Assessment (CSVRA) Review

Briefing on the 10-Year Country Structural Vulnerability and Resilience Assessment (CSVRA) ReviewDate | 11 June 2026

Tomorrow (12 June), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1353^rd meeting with two agenda items, one of them being a ‘Briefing on the 10-Year Country Structural Vulnerability and Resilience Assessment (CSVRA) Review.’ Although the session is scheduled for tomorrow, the initial June 2026 Programme of Work had scheduled it to happen on 30 June.

The Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the AU and Stand-in Chair of the PSC for the month of June, Nasir Aminu, will deliver opening remarks. This will be followed by a briefing from the Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (CPAPS), Bankole Adeoye. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which is entrusted with a relevant mandate, may also brief the PSC on its critical role.

Structural conflict prevention is closely linked to the AU’s core principles as set out in its Constitutive Act, which requires Member States to uphold democratic values, human rights, the rule of law, and good governance, while also advancing socio-economic development and regional integration. Over the years, the AU has adopted several normative and policy instruments designed to facilitate the structural prevention of conflicts. In addition to the APRM that proved effective in detecting risks and vulnerabilities of reviewed AU member states, within the framework of the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), steps were taken to develop tools aimed at facilitating the identification of a country’s structural vulnerability to conflict at an early stage. Of significance in this respect is the CSVRA and the accompanying Country Structural Vulnerability Mitigation Strategies (CSVMS).

The CSVRA, developed as a follow-up to PSC’s 360^th session, held in March 2013, forms part of the Continental Structural Conflict Prevention Framework (CSCPF). The CSCPF has been developed to facilitate a Commission-wide and coordinated approach to structural conflict prevention with the aim of identifying and addressing structural weaknesses that have the potential to cause violent conflicts if left unaddressed.

During its 463^rd session of October 2014, the PSC, taking note of its efforts to finalise the elaboration of the CSCPF and the development of the CSVRA, requested the Commission to expedite the process. PSC’s 502^nd session, convened in April 2015, adopted the CSVRA/CSVMS tools, and requested the Commission, in collaboration with the RECs, to provide all the necessary assistance to Member States and popularise the tools while encouraging Member States to fully take advantage of these tools in their efforts towards the structural prevention of conflict. At its 901^st meeting of December 2019, the PSC encouraged Member States to make full use of the Commission’s tools for structural conflict prevention, including the CSVRA.

The PSC’s last meeting on the theme was held in December 2024, as its 1251^st session, in which, it tasked the AU Commission in partnership with the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), ‘to take the necessary measures, in accordance with the rules and procedures of each organ and in compliance with their respective mandates, to establish a harmonised framework for the CSVRA and the CSVMS, including integration of CSVRA/CSVM into the APRM Questionnaire for the improvement of governance in Africa, by adopting coordinated and multi-sectoral approaches aimed at promoting the peace, security and development nexus on the continent.’ It further urged the AU Commission ‘to submit the draft harmonised framework to the PSC for approval.’ This was taken further when the PSC tasked the AU Commission to ‘undertake a comprehensive review of the CEWS, CSVRA and CSVMS with a view to reengineering the tools to effectively respond to threats to peace and security and proposing appropriate interventions’; and to ‘establish a comprehensive coordination mechanism, in collaboration with RECs/RMs and the APRM, aimed at optimising resource utilisation, strengthening synergy, and effectively integrating national, regional, and continental early warning systems, and submit the proposed coordination mechanism for its consideration by June 2025.’

Tomorrow’s session is therefore expected to give an update on the ten-Year CSVRA review, and follow up on the tasks from the 1251^st session. Of concern, however, as the CSVRA undergoes its ten-year review, several persistent challenges have come into sharper focus. One of the issues that would be in the spotlight is the concern that the PSC expressed during that session, over the limited accession of Member States to the CSCPF tools – CSVRA and CSVMS, nine (9) years after adoption. Since then, the Malawi draft report validation meeting was held in November 2025, and the Strategic Review of the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) methodology was held in Rwanda in November 2025, which included reviewing the CSCPF implementation (which considered the CSVRA and CSVMS). Additionally, the restructuring that integrated the Political Affairs and Peace and Security Departments into the PAPS Department effectively dismantled the dedicated CEWS division, leaving the CSVRA without a clear institutional anchor or dedicated personnel to promote and implement the mechanism. There is also the question of the alignment between and integration of the CSVRA into the APRM review processes to avoid duplication and ensure coherence.

It would also be of interest to the PSC to look into the decision of the February 2022 35^th AU summit requesting the Commission to establish a ‘Monitoring and Oversight Committee’ comprising the AU Commission, RECs/RMs, APRM and Member States to facilitate effective coordination, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. In tomorrow’s session, PSC may follow up on progress made towards the implementation of this decision. The other issue that is expected to feature during tomorrow’s session concerns the update that the AU Commission may provide on the lessons learned from the implementation of the CSVRA on how it helps identify risks or vulnerabilities for conflict and facilitating the initiation of measures to mitigate or address those risks or vulnerabilities in the countries that volunteered to undertake the CSVRA review.

The expected outcome is a communiqué. The PSC may underscore the importance of enhanced action for addressing structural causes of conflicts and the need for the full utilisation of the CSVRA towards mitigating and resolving the underlying causes and drivers of conflicts in Africa. The PSC may also reiterate the need for strengthening coordination between relevant entities for enhancing the effective implementation of the CSVRA without duplication. It may, in this regard, underscore the importance of the Monitoring and Oversight Committee that the AU Assembly tasked the AU Commission to establish at its 35^th session in February 2022. The PSC may also encourage both the AU Commission and member states that undertook the CSVRA review to document and share lessons learned from the review in order to improve the role of the CSVRA to tackle the underlying causes and drivers of conflict. The PSC may encourage Member States to fully take advantage of the CSVRA and CSVMS as instruments for the consolidation of peace and stability.