Briefing on the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Briefing on the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)Date | 26 October 2026

On 27 October, the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) will receive a briefing from the AU Facilitators on the situation in eastern DRC.

Following opening remarks by Churchill Ewumbue-Monono, Permanent Representative of Cameroon to the AU and PSC Chairperson for October, the AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), Bankole Adeoye, is expected to make an introductory statement. The session is also expected to feature a briefing by the Panel of Facilitators.

Following the joint extraordinary summit of the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the situation in eastern DRC in March 2025, the two regional organisations appointed five former African heads of state from Botswana, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria as co-facilitators of the peace process. In April 2025, the Bureau of the AU Assembly appointed Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé as the AU mediator. The mediator and the five co-facilitators constitute a panel leading the African-led mediation efforts to address the situation in eastern DRC. At its 1323rd ministerial meeting in December 2025, the AUPSC endorsed the consolidated African-led mediation architecture.

Tomorrow’s meeting takes place against the backdrop of a significant deterioration in the security situation in eastern DRC. It will provide an opportunity for AUPSC members to take stock of developments since their last meeting on the issue in December 2025. Despite agreements signed by the parties under the Washington and Doha processes last year, fighting continues unabated in eastern DRC, fuelling tensions across the wider region. The growing use of drones in the conflict has also become a major concern, significantly increasing the risks to civilians.

In light of these developments, AUPSC members may welcome the renewed momentum behind the African-led mediation efforts. Since the beginning of this year, the Panel has been active in raising its profile and strengthening coordination with international partners. On the sidelines of the AU Summit in February, Panel members held consultations with the AU Commission, during which the Commission’s role in anchoring the Independent Joint Secretariat supporting the African-led mediation architecture was reaffirmed.

On 7 and 8 June, the Panel held a high-level meeting in Lomé, Togo, with the participation of other partners, as part of its semi-annual review of progress in the African-led mediation efforts. The communiqué adopted at the conclusion of the meeting reaffirmed the centrality of the AU’s role in the ongoing mediation, while underscoring the need to strengthen synergies and complementarity with other processes aimed at resolving the crisis in eastern DRC. This was followed by a high-level harmonisation meeting of the AU Panel of Facilitators and the Independent Joint Secretariat, held in Gaborone, Botswana, from 24 to 26 July. A key outcome was the development of a six-month strategic roadmap and action plan outlining the Panel’s core objectives and priorities in support of a negotiated solution to the crisis in eastern DRC.

In this regard, the Panel’s strategic objective appears to be to ‘consolidate coherent African political leadership of the eastern DRC peace process and deliver measurable de-escalation by promoting alignment and complementarity among the AU-led architecture, the Washington process and the Doha process; advancing the broader regional, national and community-level dimensions of the conflict; and supporting coordinated implementation consistent with Congolese ownership, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC, and relevant AU decisions’.

In line with this strategic objective, the panel intends to focus on five key priority areas:

1. supporting coherence and implementation in relation to the Washington and Doha tracks under the auspices of the US and Qatar, respectively;
2. advancing community-level reconciliation and structured engagement with prioritised armed-group interlocutors;
3. supporting a broader regional political and security dialogue extending beyond the bilateral DRC-Rwanda dimension;
4. advocating for strengthened humanitarian action and the meaningful participation of women and youth; and
5. promoting cooperative and transparent governance of natural resources to reduce conflict incentives, address illicit mineral flows, disrupt armed-group financing and support sustainable regional development.

It appears that the panel has organised itself along five workstreams to implement these priorities.

1. The Military and Security workstream, which supports ceasefire implementation, verification and compliance monitoring;
2. Engagement with armed groups and community reconciliation, which connects national and regional political processes with locally identified grievances, security concerns and entry points for social cohesion;
3. The Humanitarian workstream, which prioritises humanitarian access, civilian protection and durable solutions for refugees and internally displaced persons;
4. The Regional Economic Cooperation workstream, which advances regional cooperation and responsible natural resource governance, including through the Regional Economic Integration Framework (REIF) agreed within the framework of the Washington Accords signed between DRC and Rwanda in December 2025; and
5. The meaningful participation of women, youth, faith-based organisations and community leaders, which is a cross-cutting requirement across all workstreams.

Panel members have already undertaken various initiatives over the past several months to advance the African-led mediation efforts. According to the Secretary-General’s latest report on the Great Lakes, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has been working to build consensus around convening a high-level summit aimed at restoring confidence among the parties. Former Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi convened a meeting on economic integration and natural resources in April to promote private-sector engagement. In June, former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde engaged the International Contact Group for the Great Lakes to mobilise support for the AU-led mediation efforts. Meanwhile, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta developed options for engaging armed groups not yet covered by the ongoing peace processes.

The Panel members also undertook a regional tour that had been delayed due to the Ebola outbreak. On 5 October, they visited Goma, the capital of North Kivu, where, according to a 9 October AU press statement, they held a series of meetings with representatives of the M23; the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism Plus (EJVM+), which is based in the city; and UN and other international partners operating on the ground. The EJVM was established by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) in 2012, while the EJVM+ is being operationalised as a key component of the Ceasefire Oversight and Verification Mechanism (COVM), agreed upon by the Congolese government and the M23 under the Doha process.

The Panel members subsequently visited Kigali on 7 October, where they met with Rwandan officials, including President Paul Kagame. On 10 October, they travelled to Kinshasa, where they met with Congolese officials, including President Félix Tshisekedi, as well as civil society representatives. At tomorrow’s meeting, the Panel members are expected to brief AUPSC members on these engagements and seek their continued support for the African-led mediation efforts. AUPSC members discussed the situation in eastern DRC with their Security Council counterparts during their annual consultations, held on 23 October in New York. There appears to be broad support for the ongoing mediation efforts across multiple tracks. The key challenge, however, remains translating commitments made by the parties through these processes into concrete action to silence the guns in eastern DRC.

The expected outcome of the session is the adoption of a communiqué. The PSC is expected to strongly condemn the escalation of violence and the growing use of drones in the conflict.  The PSC may call on all parties to the conflict to respect their commitments under the existing agreements and translate them into concrete actions towards the cessation of hostilities and de-escalation. It may further emphasise the imperative of ensuring the effective implementation of the agreed ceasefire arrangements, including through verification and compliance monitoring mechanisms. With respect to the African-led mediation, the PSC may welcome the renewed momentum behind the work of the AU Mediator and the Panel of Facilitators, including their recent engagements in Goma, Kigali and Kinshasa, and reaffirm the centrality of AU leadership in advancing a coherent and coordinated peace process. In this context, it may call on the AU Commission to continue anchoring the Independent Joint Secretariat and encourage closer coordination between the AU-led mediation architecture and the Washington and Doha processes, with a view to ensuring complementarity and supporting the implementation of commitments made under the respective tracks. The PSC may also express support for the implementation of the Panel’s six-month strategic roadmap and action plan, particularly in advancing community-level reconciliation, engaging armed groups not adequately covered by existing processes, and promoting broader regional political and security dialogue beyond the bilateral DRC–Rwanda dimension. Furthermore, the PSC may emphasise the importance of strengthening humanitarian access and civilian protection, promoting the meaningful participation of women and youth, and addressing the conflict-related drivers associated with illicit mineral flows and the financing of armed groups through responsible natural resource governance and regional economic cooperation. It may also encourage sustained engagement with regional actors, international partners and local communities to consolidate confidence among the parties and reinforce Congolese ownership of the peace process.