By Abdul Mohammed

Sudan arrives at this General Assembly as expanding war across the Middle East and the Red Sea consumes diplomatic attention. The conflict with Iran has disrupted the Gulf and global supply routes, while the latest Houthi advance around Bab el-Mandeb has turned the maritime corridor facing the Horn into an active strategic front. Sudan risks being pushed aside precisely as its war becomes more dangerous.

That would be a grave mistake. Sudan sits where the Horn, the Gulf, North Africa and the Sahel meet, and its war is sustained by external weapons, finance, technology and political sponsorship. Neglect will draw it deeper into the wider confrontation.

Yet purposeful movement on Sudan is still possible. The war is not simple or fully “ripe” for negotiation, but the principles are known, the mediation formations exist and extensive consultations have taken place. Political cooperation could convert this groundwork into a practical path forward.

Responsibility rests especially with two sets of actors that already know one another: the mediators and Sudan’s political and civic formations. Their fragile relationship has known tensions, disappointments and measured progress. Yet it is a foundation, reinforced by Track II mediators and facilitators who have kept channels open. It must now be deepened and given common purpose. Each side must ask what more it can do.

To describe Sudan as a comparatively low-hanging fruit must never trivialize its tragedy. Nothing about it is easy. But in diplomatic terms, relative to the gathering storms, Sudan is unusually actionable. The planned face-to-face meeting of the Quad and the Quintet on 24 September could become the moment when consultation gives way to joint action.

A Humanitarian System at the Edge

On 14 September, the World Food Programme reported that almost 20 million people face acute hunger. Its funding had fallen from 645 million dollars last year to 206 million dollars this year, leaving a gap of almost 300 million dollars merely to sustain current operations. Many recipients receive only half rations. The International Organization for Migration warned that the entire humanitarian system could collapse within weeks.

This is no longer only a crisis of access. Aid organizations have delivery capacity they cannot use because resources are disappearing. Red Sea disruption is raising the cost of food, fuel and fertilizer, while severe dryness threatens agriculture in Darfur. The World Meteorological Organization warns that a very strong El Nino may persist into early 2027, bringing failed rains and crop losses in some parts of the Horn and destructive rain and flooding in others. In Sudan’s shattered economy, either shock could sever access, displace more people and spread disease. Combined with war and vanishing aid, it threatens an unprecedented regional famine emergency.

A week ago, the UN Security Council convened its second Informal Interactive Dialogue on Sudan. It confirmed that Sudan still has a diplomatic constituency. But attention is not strategy. A humanitarian system approaching collapse cannot be answered by another cycle of concern without decisions.

The War Trap Has Become a Red Sea Danger

The battlefield has changed, but the logic of the war has not. The Sudanese Armed Forces’ recovery and battle field gains restored confidence and national pride among many Sudanese. But military recovery is not national recovery. The Rapid Support Forces retain depth across much of Darfur, Kordofan remains contested, and fighting and drone attacks are spreading, including in Blue Nile.

Neither belligerent has a credible military path to governing a unified Sudan, yet each can deny victory to the other. Every advance renews hope for a stronger negotiating position; every setback brings new mobilization and sponsorship. Diplomacy is postponed until after the next offensive. This is the war trap: movement without resolution and sacrifice without a realizable national purpose.

Its destination is de facto partition as rival administrations, security structures, war economies and external relationships harden. Sudan needs no formally declared border to be divided by force. A war fought in the name of unity can become the instrument that destroys it. On that path there will be no victors, only the vanquished: the Sudanese people, their national institutions and the country itself.

The Quad members – the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – are not detached from this upheaval. Their interests and relationships can deepen differences, but they also provide unusual leverage. Cooperation on Sudan would not solve the region’s larger wars. It would show that collective action remains possible even among states divided elsewhere.

Mediation Has Produced a Foundation but Not Yet a Strategy

Sudan does not lack initiatives, envoys or communiques. It lacks a common strategy understood and carried by both the mediators and Sudanese political and civic actors.

The Quad established an important foundation: Sudan’s unity and sovereignty, no viable military solution, a humanitarian truce leading to a permanent ceasefire, and a credible civilian-led political transition. Its effort to secure a truce has stalled, but the objective remains indispensable.

The Quintet – the African Union, IGAD, the United Nations, the European Union and the League of Arab States – has concentrated on the civilian political track. Berlin established shared principles and supported a joint Sudanese call to end the war. Addis Ababa consultations tested positions across political and civic formations. A good-offices mission to Khartoum from 8 to 10 September then listened to the authorities, political actors, the Democratic Bloc, women and youth, and those associated with a proposed dialogue.

These efforts have established a working relationship between the formal mediators and Sudanese political and civic formations. It is intermittent and not consistently trusted, but it is real. Track II mediators and facilitators have strengthened it by sustaining channels, testing ideas and connecting constituencies when official engagement slowed. This foundation creates reciprocal responsibility. Mediators must turn listening into strategy, protect the civilian track and prevent rival initiatives from splintering it. Sudanese formations must convert consultation into a minimum national position capable of sustaining negotiations. Track II actors should support the common architecture rather than compete with it. Each can do more, and each should be accountable for doing so.

This is notable progress, but consultation is not negotiation. It tests consent, maps convergence and helps design a process; it does not create a legitimate dialogue or produce a transition. The next step must command the confidence of armed actors on security obligations and of political and civic communities on Sudan’s constitutional future.

The planned Quad-Quintet meeting on 24 September is the best immediate opportunity to make that transition. It should not create another mechanism. It should make the existing mechanisms work in one direction, drawing on structured Sudanese input before the meeting and returning promptly to Sudanese political and civic actors with a clear programme afterwards.

What the Meeting on 24 September Should Produce

First, the Quad and Quintet should agree on a single political destination: one sovereign Sudan; no sustainable military solution; preservation of legitimate state institutions without permanent belligerent entitlement; and an inclusive, Sudanese-owned process leading to civilian and constitutional government. These propositions already reflect substantial Sudanese and international convergence.

Second, they should adopt an immediate humanitarian rescue and de-escalation package. Measures often called confidence-building should sit inside a political strategy of de-escalation. Confidence is an outcome; the purpose is to break the war’s momentum and open a path to a humanitarian truce and then cessation of hostilities. Initial steps could protect population centres and humanitarian routes; establish local non-attack arrangements; restrain drone attacks and new fronts; open direct military communication; enable detainee releases; and establish verification. The logic is to reduce, reciprocate, verify and expand, converting security openings into political engagement.

Urgent financing must be included. Hunger, displacement and institutional collapse deepen recruitment, predation and fragmentation. Keeping people alive and communities connected is part of preserving the country for peace.

Third, internal de-escalation must be matched by external restraint. War cannot contract while arms, drones, finance, mercenaries and logistics replenish expectations of military advantage. The Quad is uniquely placed to begin an external de-escalation compact. Its members need not agree on every regional question to agree that none benefits from the disappearance of a coherent Sudanese state.

Fourth, they should confirm a disciplined division of labour. The Quad should pursue humanitarian arrangements, military restraint and cessation; the Quintet should advance the civilian political process. The African Union and IGAD should provide the regional bridge, while the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy connects the tracks. Track II facilitators should sustain discreet channels and offer technical support within this common strategy. This is strategic complementarity, not institutional merger.

Finally, the meeting should produce an action plan, not simply common language. A 90-day programme through December should sit within a six-month horizon, assigning responsibilities and reviews. Within 30 days, the mediators should assess progress with representative Sudanese actors: is violence contracting, is access improving, is external support for escalation diminishing, and is civilian space expanding? The measure of diplomacy is whether politics becomes more authoritative than the battlefield.

The Political Sequence Must Be Protected

The political track also requires clarity. Its stages will overlap as humanitarian, military and political dynamics are managed simultaneously. But flexibility cannot become ambiguity. Each phase needs a defined purpose, an expected product and a clear test of completion.

Preparatory consultations should achieve three things: first, identify convergence and unresolved differences; second, agree the purpose, principles, participation criteria, safeguards and decision rules of the process; and third, secure consent for a credible preparatory mechanism and define how the civilian track relates to negotiations with armed actors. Their product is an agreed process design, not a claim to represent Sudan or govern it.

A credible preparatory mechanism should then organize an inclusive intra-Sudanese political dialogue, with its mandate and criteria agreed before names become a contest over patronage. The dialogue should produce a common anti-war framework, minimum principles for unity and civilian constitutional government, and a representative mandate for the next negotiations. Its product is a shared Sudanese political framework, not a premature government.

The political process should convert that framework into negotiated agreements on transitional authority, security arrangements, accountability and implementation, while connecting it to the humanitarian truce and cessation track. A national dialogue proper belongs to a later, sufficiently grounded phase. It should broaden public ownership, address the social contract, constitution and reconciliation, and help constitute a legitimate post-war order. It cannot substitute for negotiations that stop the fighting.

This clarity also reduces the false contest between an “internal” and an “external” dialogue. Any initiative, whether convened inside Sudan or elsewhere, should subscribe to the same political destination, sequence, standards and safeguards. Different spaces can then reinforce one strategy instead of becoming rival claims that polarize Sudanese and fragment mediation.

Humanitarian and security negotiations must proceed in parallel. Belligerents must deliver restraint, access, cessation and compliance. But arms must not confer ownership of Sudan’s constitutional future. The tracks must be connected without militarizing the civilian process.

A Patriotic Compact to Save Sudan

International cooperation can create space, alter incentives and support a credible process. It cannot manufacture the Sudanese will required to save the country.

Sudanese political and civic formations, professional associations, resistance communities, women, youth, displaced people, refugees and advocates around the General Assembly should converge around a minimum patriotic compact: one Sudan; an end to the war; no political future founded on military victory; preservation of national institutions without permanent belligerent control; equal citizenship; civilian political centrality; justice; and a Sudanese-owned constitutional path.

That compact would be the Sudanese contribution to a common strategy. The mediators should answer it with consistency, transparency and protection and centrality of independent civilian agency. Neither side should wait for perfect conditions or flawless performance by the other. The governing ethic must be reciprocal responsibility: what more can each do, now, to reverse the war dynamics?

This does not require Sudanese to erase differences, equate the belligerents or abandon justice. Negotiation is not absolution. It is the arena in which war can be ended, accountability pursued, one professional national army built and legitimate authority reconstructed. The most urgent divide is between a war that is unmaking the country and the recovery of politics as the means by which Sudanese can disagree without destroying Sudan. Anti-war politics is patriotism in its most practical form.

Joint Quad-Quintet action would be modest against the scale of regional crisis, but its significance could extend beyond Sudan. It would show that states divided by larger confrontations can still cooperate to prevent another country from being consumed by them, restoring a measure of confidence in African, Arab and international peacemaking.

The final responsibility belongs to the Sudanese. Only Sudanese can save Sudan; others can help. There can be no meaningful victor if the country itself is vanquished. On 24 September, the Quad and Quintet should leave with a common programme, named responsibilities and a review date. Sudanese political and civic formations should answer with a minimum patriotic platform and the determination to rebuild a national political arena stronger than the armed camps that displaced it.

The opportunity is real, but it will not remain open indefinitely. Before Sudan disappears from the world’s agenda – and before war makes Sudan disappear into rival territories – its people and their international partners must act together. Sudan is still possible.

Abdul Mohammed

While the world’s attention is fixed on the war with Iran and its widening fronts across the Middle East, the Horn of Africa is being drawn into the same strategic theatre. The Red Sea no longer separates two regions. It connects their wars.

Since the United States and Israel began their war with Iran in late February 2026, pressure on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has increased the strategic importance of the southern Red Sea. The Houthis have turned that vulnerability into leverage at Bab el-Mandeb. Their control of Mocha, Mayun Island and the Hanish islands has strengthened their position. Missiles, drones, selective attacks and the uncertainty they create can redirect ships, raise insurance costs and convert geography into political power.

The consequences reach the African shore. Djibouti lies close to Houthi-held positions while hosting foreign bases. As fighting between Iran-backed Houthi forces and Saudi-backed government forces intensifies during the past week, it is reported that some 3000 people fleeing Yemen crossed the sea into Djibouti, prompting the authorities in Djibouti to call for international help.

Eritrea’s coast and islands have gained strategic value. Somalia’s trade routes are exposed, Somaliland’s recognition campaign is becoming entangled with offers of security access, and Sudan’s war draws support through the same maritime space. Ethiopia’s search for reliable sea access now unfolds amid military blocs and chokepoint politics.

The Tilly inversion

Charles Tilly famously argued that war made the state and the state made war. In early modern Europe, violent competition compelled rulers to raise taxes, build administrations, organise armies and concentrate authority. In the contemporary Horn, the conditions are almost the reverse.

International recognition can preserve the juridical shell of a state after its institutions fracture. Governments and armed movements obtain weapons, finance and protection from abroad without building durable relationships with citizens. Extraction, illicit commerce and external rents can replace taxation, while drones give actors with little administrative capacity unprecedented destructive reach.

Military survival therefore no longer requires state-building. A government may retain international recognition while losing territorial authority. An armed movement may control populations, trade and territory without accepting the obligations of government. Foreign sponsors can keep both alive. War now makes armed networks, and those networks unmake the state.

State-unmaking is cumulative. Institutions lose people and resources, commanders acquire independent power, and citizens seek protection through communal or militia structures. External insecurity accelerates this fragmentation. Powers seeking ports, bases and strategic depth may deal directly with armed movements, federal entities, local authorities and commercial networks, as well as national governments. Sovereignty survives formally, but its exercise is fragmented.

It is under these conditions that permanent war becomes a reality. It does not require uninterrupted combat in every country. It describes a regional condition in which coercion becomes a normal means of bargaining, wars mutate rather than end, and the institutions needed to make peace weaken with every cycle of violence. States remain on the map while their authority, legitimacy and social foundations steadily erode.

The Red Sea becomes one theatre

The process of the collapse of the Red Sea as a border separating the Horn of Africa and the Gulf has been underway at least for the past decade. The Iran war has exposed the strategic unity of the Gulf, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Pressure at Hormuz and Houthi leverage at Bab el-Mandeb operate as paired chokepoints. A conflict centred on Iran can therefore affect food and fuel prices in the Horn, Gulf energy exports, Suez Canal revenues and the security calculations of every coastal state.

Gulf states are diversifying partnerships while retaining American protection and reopening channels with Iran. Their search for security, not just military but other forms, has reached and will increasingly reach across the Red Sea.

Indeed, alliance formation and competition for influence and control of ports and trade routes are intensifying. Ports and military facilities now sit at the centre of this contest. Djibouti, Berbera, Bosaso, Assab and Port Sudan attract interest as commercial gateways and nodes in wider security networks.

Investment can bring genuine benefit. But opaque agreements and exclusive military arrangements can turn domestic disputes into international commitments and strengthen subnational actors at the expense of national settlements.

For Horn governments, the lesson is sobering. Imported alliance systems cannot provide durable security. An external patron may offer weapons, finance or diplomatic support, but its commitments change with its interests. A partnership designed to solve one immediate problem can import a much larger geopolitical confrontation. Strategic autonomy requires diversified relationships, not dependence on a different guarantor.

The economic asymmetry is equally important. Gulf states possess sovereign funds, storage capacity and infrastructure; most Horn states have far smaller buffers. Disrupted shipping, higher food and energy costs, falling port revenues or attacks on infrastructure can quickly become fiscal, humanitarian and political crises. Economic disruption in a wealthy state may become institutional disintegration in a fragile one.

Militarisation compounds the danger. Governments facing drones, proxy forces and maritime insecurity will devote scarce resources to weapons, interceptors and regime protection. Public institutions, services and economic transformation receive less. The prioritisation of military survival does not merely damage the state; it changes what the state is for.

It is also notable that the security geography on both sides of the Red Sea has integrated faster than diplomacy.

Three fronts of state unmaking

Sudan remains the clearest case. The war that began in April 2023 as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has become a conflict among broad and unstable military coalitions. The army’s recovery of Khartoum in March 2025 restored confidence and parts of the national administration. But the RSF retains strategic depth across much of Darfur and has built parallel arrangements. Militias, former rebels, foreign fighters and war economies have acquired interests of their own.

Each principal belligerent can prevent the other from ruling Sudan, but neither has demonstrated a credible path to reunifying and legitimately governing it by force. The longer the war continues, the more de facto partition acquires institutions, revenues, external relationships and political constituencies. Sudan may retain one flag and one seat at the United Nations while being unmade from within.

The Iran war has increased the value of coastlines, ports, islands and airfields. A matter for negotiation through trade and transit can become a military security dilemma. In this context, a second danger lies in renewed confrontation among Ethiopia, Eritrea and forces in Tigray. The Pretoria agreement ended the main fighting but did not settle the underlying disputes. Ethiopia’s demand for dependable sea access has become entangled with wider regional alignments and rising insecurity, gravely affecting Ethiopia’s economic security.

If the current trajectory is not reversed and war is not averted, the consequences would be more devastating than any of the wars of the past three decades. Drones, proxies and external sponsors would accelerate escalation. Even victory would leave devastated borderlands, deeper division and greater foreign dependence, unmaking political order on both sides.

Somalia presents a different form of the same crisis. Its state-making process remains incomplete but has produced consolidating federal institutions and a political order sustained by continuous negotiation. That progress is threatened by tensions between the federal government and member states, Al-Shabaab, and the growing practice of external powers cultivating separate relationships with Somali authorities.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 changed the regional setting. Somaliland’s claim deserves consideration on its history, the will of its people, its record of governance and a negotiated relationship with Somalia. If recognition becomes a transaction for military access or alignment in the Iran war, however, Somaliland risks entering international politics as a forward security platform before it enters as an autonomous political actor. Somalia is weakened by the same logic. State-making cannot be outsourced to competing alliances without producing dependency and further fragmentation.

Peacemaking as statecraft

The region’s mediation machinery has not kept pace with this transformation. The African Union and IGAD confront fragmented wars, divided members and external actors that are simultaneously mediators, patrons and participants. Both are way behind the curve and have yet to adapt their tools and assumptions, including on peacemaking and mediation, to these profound transformations.

Mediation must therefore be treated as statecraft, not as a succession of meetings. It requires sustained political leadership, strong analysis, knowledge of the parties and their social bases, and leverage over the external networks that sustain violence. In other words, mediation today requires ‘sustained political architecture’. Arms transfers, foreign fighters, financial networks and security agreements must become subjects of mediation rather than matters treated as external to it.

African institutions need a standing strategic capacity that connects mediation, civilian protection, conflict economics, and regional diplomacy. It should be financed predictably, including through the African Peace Fund.

The AU and regional bodies like IGAD also need a common framework for the Horn and Red Sea, leveraging and building on existing regional bodies such as IGAD and the Gulf Cooperation Council. This should not be another military bloc. It should support shared threat assessment, political consultation, transparent rules for ports and bases, infrastructure protection, preventive diplomacy and collective engagement with outside powers. Acting together will not eliminate national differences, but it can stop those differences from being organised by rival external alliances.

Rebuilding the state against permanent war

Peacemaking, as a condition for regional and continental integration, must recover state-making as its objective. Ending combat is indispensable, but a ceasefire alone does not recreate sustainable peace and public authority. Political settlements must rebuild constitutional legitimacy, accountable finance, professional institutions and local systems able to provide security and services without militia permission.

Domestic settlement is also the foundation of strategic autonomy. States divided within are easily penetrated from outside. Stronger AU and IGAD also advance strategic autonomy, providing a shield from external pressure and repurposing mediation for changing conditions.

Dawit Toga, Visiting Sr. Research Fellow, African Leadership Centre, King’s College London

The wave of popular uprisings that swept across most of North Africa in early 2011 marked a major turning point in the political trajectory of the region. Apart from its immediate impact of bringing down governments, it carried huge repercussions for peace and security in Africa and the African Union’s governance and security architectures.

After the popular uprisings of Tunisia and Egypt, Libya, under Muammar Gaddafi’s four-decade rule, became the next domino to crumble. What began as peaceful protests in Benghazi on 15 February 2011 rapidly escalated into an armed rebellion, catalysed by the National Transitional Council (NTC) and subsequently enabled by NATO’s military intervention under UN Security Council Resolution 1973. By October 2011, Gaddafi’s capture and extrajudicial execution marked the regime’s effective overthrow in less than eight months.

More than a decade later, the continent continues to grapple with both the conflict in Libya and its transnational fallout: arms proliferation across the Sahel has exacerbated conflicts and enabled terrorist networks, while the resultant instability of the wider region has generated heightened levels of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant flows across the Mediterranean. The Libyan case thus represents not merely a historical episode but an ongoing regional crisis whose reverberations continue to shape African security governance.

Despite the fact that the AU’s peacemaking initiative had a limited temporal scope, the trials and tribulations of that mediation effort in Libya offer useful insights and lessons on the factors that shape the deployment and relative success of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) mechanisms as well as on the AU’s role in the aftermath of such initiatives. Clearly, that episode of AU’s mediation requires a much bigger examination and this short article seeks to contribute to that by discussing the fundamental questions of the policy challenges that the Libyan crisis posed to the APSA, the policy approach that the AU took on the crisis and the peacemaking instrument that the AU deployed in pursuit of the policy approach it adopted and the various institutional and geopolitical factors that eventually derailed AU’s peace efforts.

Overview of AU’s Mediation Efforts in Libya

The AU’s engagement unfolded amid rapidly changing events and competing international initiatives. Initially, it started as and looked like the popular uprisings sweeping through North Africa, with escalating incidents of violent confrontations. On 23 February 2011, the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) convened its 261^st session, expressing deep concern and strongly condemning ‘the indiscriminate and excessive use of force and lethal weapons against peaceful protesters’, while urging restraint and the need for preservation of the territorial integrity and unity of Libya.

Unlike the popular protests in Tunisia and Egypt, the protests and the push for ending Muammar Gaddafi’s decades of rule did not remain peaceful for long. It quickly descended into armed insurrection, thereby crossing into the realm of armed conflict. This prompted the PSC to convene another and this time around, a landmark session on 10 March 2011.  It outlined a policy approach for diplomatic resolution with four pillars: cessation of hostilities, access to humanitarian assistance, protection of foreign nationals, particularly those of African origin and adoption and implementation of political reforms. To lead the diplomatic process, the PSC established the AU Ad Hoc High-level Committee on Libya mandated to ‘facilitate an inclusive dialogue among the Libyan parties.’

While many in the UN, EU and Arab League expressed the view that there was imminent danger of commission of serious atrocities in Libya and moved for intervention, the AU neither shared those views nor called for intervention in Libya. Most members of the PSC were not convinced that there was substantial evidence to support the fear of mass atrocities in Libya, despite Gaddafi’s rhetorical posturing. As such, the PSC opted for dialogue and peacemaking as the avenue for the resolution of the conflict in Libya.

The critical turning point came with UN Security Council Resolution 1973 of 17 March 2011 that purported to enforce the responsibility to protect (R2P). The resolution, passed with support from the three AU members under heavy Western pressure, authorised ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians, established a no-fly zone, and mandated coalitions of the willing to enforce the no-fly zone, paving the way for NATO intervention that commenced on 19 March.

This decision came in clear collusion with the AU approach. The resolution, adopted just a week after the AU PSC meeting, effectively marginalised diplomatic efforts and established a framework prioritszing military intervention over the political dialogue for which the AU put in place a mechanism.

Solomon Ayele Dersso, PhD, Founding Director, Amani Africa

When it kicks off today in Luanda, Angola, the major question that the extraordinary summit of the African Union (AU) on strengthening conflict prevention and resolution faces is whether it will mark a break from the past or be yet another missed opportunity.

Given the scale, nature and proliferation of conflicts across different parts of the continent, this is not a moment for a business-as-usual summitry. And, the challenge for this summit is not about adopting new decisions or a wish list of new activities to be undertaken over the course of the next few years or making marginal institutional refinements. Indeed, in adopting Assembly/AU/Dec.949(XXXIX) for holding an extraordinary summit in Luanda on the strengthening of mechanisms for conflict prevention and resolution in Africa, the 39^th ordinary session of the AU Assembly in February 2026 committed ‘to concrete, measurable, and time-bound deliverables, rather than a declarative forum.’

The question for this summit is accordingly whether African leaders gathering in Luanda will adopt decisive actions for exercising full responsibility and use all the diplomatic and normative arsenal at the disposal of the AU to arrest the downward spiral in the various conflict situations on the continent. Over the past decade, as a review of the first ten-year implementation of AU’s flagship peace and security agenda of Silencing the Guns revealed, the peace and security conditions and the operation of the African Peace and Security Architecture have come to run into major crises.

The result has been the emergence and entrenchment of a new era of conflicts and insecurity. The continent is witnessing the persistence and expansion of complex armed conflicts, the proliferation of violent extremist groups, recurring unconstitutional changes of government, intensified geopolitical competition, and growing humanitarian and climate-related pressures. As pointed out in Amani Africa’s signature publication accompanying the 39^th AU summit, ‘the nature and scale of conflicts in some of the affected regions is such that they pose an existential threat to the affected peoples and states.’ Indeed, the state of conflicts and insecurity is such that it necessitates the mobilisation of the kind of emergency collective action that AU member states mustered in responding to the COVID19 pandemic.

In this context, the decisiveness that member states need to summon in Luanda should lead to tasking the AU Commission Chairperson to institute an emergency situation room dedicated to the major conflict situations in Sudan, the Sahel, DRC and South Sudan under the direct responsibility of the Chairperson, supported by the Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security. In the same way, the AU mobilized collective action in response to COVID 19, such an emergency situation room will operate as an instrument for mobilising sustained and robust conflict resolution and peace restoring efforts, implementing politically and operationally sound conflict resolution strategy dedicated and tailored to each of the major conflict situations on the continent and building and nurturing the level of consensus and support from member states and regional and international actors required for effective collective action.

Such an approach will also help the AU to break from the inertia of the practice of the past years during which the AU increasingly lost influence. In several major crises across the continent, the AU has struggled to show leadership (by being the first to act and proactively, by articulating compelling political strategy, and by mobilising consensus among its member states around and support for such a strategy) in preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and mediation processes. APSA’s conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms did not fare well in respect of any of the major conflict situations. With the AU unable to seize the space for peace initiatives, various external actors have come to assume more prominent political and diplomatic roles. As documented in a report Re-energising Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa: a Quest to Salvage the APSA?, the APSA has struggled to respond to mounting challenges, with the leadership on Libya, Sudan and the DRC–Rwanda file passing to actors outside the continent while the AU plays, at best, a marginal role of legitimising such processes.

The lessons from the genesis and the first decade of the APSA also remain instructive for ending AU’s years of declining influence. The APSA and its implementation between early 2000 and early 2010s presented Africa with the platform that catalysed the journey towards the realisation of the long quest for pax Africana. A combination of factors including the provision of leadership by a group of leaders shaped by and seeking to overcome the horrors of war, not least of all the genocide against the Tutsi’s in Rwanda, renewed interest in and mobilization for Pan-Africanism and collective responsibility and a supportive international multilateral environment were critical both for the development of the APSA and its nearly a decade of relatively more successful efforts that contributed to reduction of conflicts in Africa.

Today, the changing international situation not only aggravates but also accelerates the conflict dynamics on the continent. Developments of the past few years show that the multilateral system is in deep crisis. Geopolitical tensions are deepening. Force is becoming a leading instrument in pursuing national interest. Breaches of fundamental rules of international law, including the UN Charter, have become recurrent. As documented in a policy brief on the 75^th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, what is troublesome is the fact not only that there is widespread violation of multilateral norms including IHL and the Geneva Conventions but also that ‘these violations are occurring without any fear of accountability, thus with impunity, and are often cloaked in attempts to justify or legitimise them.’

In such times of global disorder, responsibility primarily lies with and should be assumed by the continental body and its member states. The exercise of such responsibility, with resolute commitment, will be measured not just by the convening of meetings but by whether the force of decisions and the speed of follow-through would match the gravity and urgency of the emergency-level state of the peace and security situation on the continent. Unless African leaders gathered in Luanda rise to the moment, reassert the political purpose of the APSA, and reaffirm conflict prevention and resolution as an exercise in consequence by shaping the trajectory of conflicts through effective and sustained emergency peace restoring measures rather than episodic meetings and ceremonial processes, the AU may continue to float adrift as a new era of conflicts entrench and it concedes more space for external actors.

The last thing the continent needs from the Luanda summit is decisions that lead to ceremonial meetings and the establishment of processes bereft of political weight and consequences. As a special research report published ahead of the Luanda summit rightly pointed out, ‘[t]he continent should avoid becoming absorbed in prolonged consultations, expert processes and successive meetings while conflicts continue to inflict immense suffering on the ground. Africa cannot afford such a disconnect.’

Abdul Mohamed, a former UN senior political advisor and head of the Sudan mediation office, is a senior fellow at Amani Africa

The selection of the next Secretary-General of the United Nations comes at a moment when the institution he or she will lead is confronting perhaps the gravest crisis of relevance, authority and confidence since its establishment over eighty years ago. This is not simply another leadership transition within an international organisation. The international order is not merely changing, but the multilateral foundations on which it once rested are being progressively weakened, through geopolitical rivalry, selective adherence to international law, declining political investment and, increasingly, preferences for unilateral and transactional arrangements. The UN finds itself having simultaneously to defend its own relevance, protect the principles of its Charter, and respond to global crises whose scale makes international cooperation more necessary than ever.

For Africa, this is not an ordinary institutional crisis. The weakening – let alone the possible demise – of effective multilateralism constitutes an existential strategic threat to the continent. Africa consequently has reason to be more invested, more vocal and more politically engaged in defending and renewing multilateralism than any other region. Yet that urgency is not sufficiently visible in African diplomacy or in the debate surrounding the selection of the next Secretary-General. This contradiction should concern us.

The retreat for multilateralism should alarm Africa 

Major powers can navigate, and some may even believe they can prosper in a weakened multilateral order. They possess military power, economic leverage, technological capacity, privileged positions in global finance, and bilateral networks through which they can pursue their interests. They can use multilateral institutions when convenient and bypass them when they are not.

Africa does not enjoy the same luxury. For Africa, multilateralism is not an á la carte proposition. Our stake in it is comprehensive. Peace and security, development, climate action, international finance, humanitarian protection, public health, migration, trade, technology governance and the protection of sovereignty all depend, in varying degrees, upon functioning international institutions, agreed rules and collective action. International law matters most to those who cannot rely upon power alone.

This is why the current retreat from multilateralism should alarm Africa.

The crisis did not begin yesterday. For more than a decade, geopolitical rivalry, paralysis in the Security Council, weakening respect for international law, unequal globalisation and growing distrust of international institutions have accumulated. The wars of recent years, including Gaza, have further exposed the selectivity with which international norms are sometimes applied and have damaged confidence in the universality of the system. More recently, policies pursued by the current United States administration have accelerated the retreat from multilateral approaches, reducing support for international institutions and privileging bilateral bargains, narrower coalitions and national power. Whatever the stated rationale, the practical effect is to weaken institutions, make collective rules more negotiable and increase the premium on power.

Consequences for Africa’s multilateral institutions 

Apart from removing the international arrangements that support pan-African multilateral cooperation, the global retreat from multilateralism does not stop at Africa’s shores. Its continental manifestation may be equally consequential. A world increasingly organised through bilateral transactions between unequal states can weaken the African Union (AU) and the regional economic communities, circumvent common African positions, and reward fragmented national bargains over continental approaches. It can encourage external powers to deal selectively with individual states and transform Africa once again into an arena in which others compete, rather than a political space in which Africans collectively exercise agency. In its most dangerous form, this tendency threatens a new balkanization of Africa – not necessarily through the redrawing of borders, but through the fragmentation of African political purpose.

The defence of global multilateralism and the defence of African multilateralism are therefore inseparable. Defending and pushing for a just global multilateralism is in the interest of Africa’s multilateral institutions. For Africa, this retreat of the post-World War II global order requires it not only to take active interest in and extend heightened support for the UN and the forging of a more inclusive and just multilateral cooperation but also to double down on its integration push and the deepening of continental multilateral cooperation.

Africa should be concerned about the selection of the next Secretary-General 

This is also why Africa’s present disposition toward the selection of the next Secretary-General is inadequate at the moment. The selection process is already in full swing. Candidates have presented their visions in public interactive dialogues and a General Assembly town hall. The Security Council has cast two straw polls in July and August indicating the views of members of the Council about each candidate at the particular point at which the polls were cast. Yet Africa has not generated the continental debate that the stakes of the selection of the next UN Secretary-General at this point in time require.

The continent should by now be asking, collectively and publicly: what kind of United Nations does Africa require in the coming decade? What must be preserved, what must be reformed, and what must be reinvented? What qualities should the next Secretary-General possess to navigate a period in which the institution may have to fight for both its relevance and its political space? And what commitments should Africa expect from candidates on peace and security, development, international financial reform, climate justice, Security Council reform and partnership with African institutions?

These are not questions to be left to New York diplomacy alone. They concern Africa’s strategic future. While the Security Council holds the key for the selection of the next Secretary-General, Africa exercises influence and responsibility by establishing the political and leadership test against which any candidate should be assessed. The question is not simply who can administer the United Nations. It is who can help navigate the organisation through this turbulent transition while contributing to the reinvention of multilateralism for a world that still desperately needs it.

The next Secretary-General must be a competent and independent leader 

The next Secretary-General cannot be merely a custodian of institutional survival. He or she must be a political leader of unusual competence, independence and judgment: firmly anchored in the Charter; capable of engaging and earning the support of the great powers without becoming captive to them; credible to the Global South; attentive to smaller states; and sufficiently imaginative to understand that defending multilateralism does not mean defending every feature of the status quo. The existing order requires reform precisely because its inequities and failures have contributed to its loss of legitimacy.

Africa cannot be asked to defend indefinitely an international system that marginalises Africa. Renewing multilateralism must therefore include democratising it. Multilateralism will survive only if states and citizens can see its value, not least of all in the core purpose of the UN. That means restoring prevention, mediation and political settlement to the centre of international peace and security; defending international law consistently rather than selectively; and advancing meaningful Security Council reform. For today’s world, this additionally means supporting reform of the international financial architecture; mobilising collective action on climate change; and developing workable regimes for global public goods, including public health, food security, digital governance, artificial intelligence and the global commons.

The UN must pursue equal partnerships with African institutions 

For Africa, one additional priority is indispensable: a qualitatively stronger relationship between the UN, the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities. The future of multilateralism will not be constructed solely in New York. It will increasingly depend upon legitimate and capable regional institutions with political knowledge, proximity and operational capacity. In networked multilateralism, the UN should not treat African institutions merely as implementing partners after decisions have been made elsewhere but at the very least as co-creators. Partnership must increasingly mean shared political analysis, early consultation, complementarity, predictable support and respect for African agency and cooperative decision-making. Strengthening African multilateralism is part of strengthening global multilateralism.

Africa must, however, also look inward. We cannot demand multilateralism internationally while weakening it continentally. The AU requires deeper political investment, predictable financing and a willingness by Member States to treat collective positions as strategic assets rather than optional declarations. The credibility of Africa’s defence of the United Nations begins with our willingness to defend and strengthen our own multilateral institutions.

Africa must decide its vision of the future of the UN and the next Secretary-General

The selection of the next Secretary-General should therefore serve as a wake-up call. Africa needs a common strategic conversation and, where possible, a common position – not necessarily about a particular individual, but about the mandate history is imposing upon whoever assumes the office. The AU should help convene and give political expression to that conversation. African governments and diplomatic missions should engage candidates systematically against an agreed set of priorities. African intellectuals, policy institutions and civil society should debate the future of multilateralism as an African strategic question rather than as a distant institutional concern. Silence is itself a position, and at this historical moment it is the wrong one, more so for Africa.

For a continent whose quest for sovereignty, development, integration and international agency has been inseparable from collective institutions, the survival and renewal of multilateralism is not somebody else’s agenda. It is an African strategic interest of the first order. Africa should therefore speak earlier, louder and more coherently than it presently does – not because the United Nations as it exists is adequate, but because a world without effective multilateral institutions would be considerably more unequal, more transactional and more dangerous for those without great-power capabilities.

The selection of the next Secretary-General gives Africa an opportunity. Africa should seize this moment – not merely to help select the next Secretary-General of the UN, but to insist upon its place as a co-author of whatever multilateral order comes next.

* An earlier version of this article was published by the International Centre for Dialogue Initiatives and can be read here https://dialogueinitiatives.org/africas-stake-in-the-future-of-the-un/

Solomon Ayele Dersso, PhD, Founding Director, Amani Africa

Previne Habu, Researcher, Amani Africa

 

The news coming out of Libya during the 8-12 August 2026 highlights a peace process and a transition caught up in a vicious cycle of violence and institutional instability. There were three major incidents that together carry significant ramifications for both the country’s economic and political stability.

In eastern Libya, the explosion of a car bomb led to the assassination of Khalifa Haftar-led Libya National Army’s intelligence chief, Major General Fawzi Al-Mansouri. The death of Al-Mansouri is indicative of the fragility of the security situation in eastern Libya, where Haftar’s LNA is dominant.

This assassination took place while in western Libya the oil refinery in Zawiya was on fire. Drone attacks on a major oil refinery and power station have triggered massive fires, prompting Libya’s National Oil Corporation to declare a ‘maximum state of emergency.’ Blackouts have triggered protests in Tripoli, Zawiya, Misrata and other cities.

Another major incident highlighting the institutional instability involved the announcement in Tripoli by Naji Issa, the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, of his resignation.

Taken together, these incidents indicate persisting strains in the peace process and transition of the country, owing to their interrelated factors aptly identified in the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council’s most recent meeting on Libya. According to the PSC’s 1351^st meeting held on 9 June 2026, one of the three major factors for the stalled peace process and transition in Libya was the institutional and political fragmentation.

Libya continues to operate on the basis of two rival governments. The internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, while the Government of National Stability (GNS), aligned with the House of Representatives (HoR) and the Libyan National Army (LNA) under General Khalifa Haftar, operates from eastern Libya. Each command has some influence in the political and economic spheres and is supported by rival local and external backers.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), the lead entity in the Libyan peace process and transition, has been exerting diplomatic efforts and has proposed a political roadmap aimed at helping Libyan stakeholders overcome their differences. The UN roadmap aims to facilitate the adoption of a viable electoral framework for presidential and legislative polls; unify institutions under a new government; and pave the way for the holding of elections. To this end, the mission launched a structured dialogue among Libyan stakeholders in December 2025 to advance implementation of the roadmap.

But there has been little progress toward meeting the major milestones set out in the roadmap to pave the way for the unification of institutions and the holding of elections. The stalled progress for implementing the roadmap is in no small measure due to the entrenched institutional bifurcation of two rival governments.

It was in view of these that the PSC emphasised the need for ‘national cohesion’, ‘the reunification of the Libyan defence and security institutions under legitimate civilian authority’ and ‘unification of all state institutions.’ It further called on ‘all Libyan stakeholders to jettison their personal ambitions, refrain from actions and statements that could escalate tension.’

The resignation of Issa, who is seen as a referee in the dispute over oil revenues, is not only a product of this institutional and political rivalry but also may come as a setback to recent efforts to unify the national budget. For the first time in a decade, US Senior Advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, purportedly facilitated an agreement on Libya’s first unified budget, which was signed on 11 April. This was hailed as a major success in bridging differences between the Libyan political rivals. The PSC also welcomed ‘the signature, on 11 April 2026, of the agreement on a unified budget by representatives of the High Council of State (HCS) and the House of Representatives (HoR) under the auspices of the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL).’ The resignation of Issa, for reasons that he said are too sensitive to disclose, seems to suggest that the celebration of the purported unified budget came too early.

While no one claimed responsibility for it, the drone attacks that precipitated the declaration of emergency in Zawiya appear to be part of a power play. The 120,000-barrel-per-day facility has repeatedly been caught in fighting between rival armed factions. This incident also relates to the second factor that accounts for the stalling of the peace process and the transition in Libya identified by the PSC, namely what could be identified as a shadow or war economy. While it encompasses trafficking of weapons and human smuggling, central to this war economy is also the illicit oil exports.

This shadow economy continues to entrench both internal and external rivalries while deepening the country’s economic decline. The PSC’s 1351^st meeting communique pointed to this, albeit indirectly, expressing concern over the economic challenges facing Libya stemming from institutional crises and instability and calling for the establishment of ‘an accountable and transparent mechanism to manage the country’s economy.’

The third major factor identified in the PSC session was external interference and uncoordinated engagement with Libyan actors. One manifestation of potentially uncoordinated engagement reflects recent US initiatives in Libya. Although Boulos reiterated US support for UNSMIL’s ongoing efforts to advance the UN political roadmap, facilitate national elections, and promote Libyan unity, his parallel engagement with Libya’s rival political leaders generated mixed reactions. Concerns have been raised, including by some major actors, that the initiatives risk undermining the framework established under the 2015 Libyan Political Agreement (the Skhirat Agreement), which remains the cornerstone of international efforts to support a unified and inclusive political transition in Libya.

Critics argued that any political arrangement negotiated outside established UN mechanisms could weaken the legitimacy of the UN-led process and reinforce elite-driven bargaining at the expense of broader national consensus. In meetings held in January and May 2026 of the tripartite framework of neighbouring countries of Libya involving Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, the foreign ministers of these countries emphasised their support for developing the political process under the auspices of the United Nations and rejecting all forms of foreign interference.

While the competing engagements highlight persisting challenges in coordinating interested global and regional actors, the most nefarious aspect of external involvement is the backing that different regional and external powers extend to rival political and armed entities in Libya. The PSC accordingly expressed its ‘strong rejection’ of ‘any form of foreign interference in the internal affairs of Libya’ and urged ‘all external parties to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Libya.’

Nearly thirty sessions after first taking up the Libya file in February 2011, the AU, like the UN, is still grappling with a country whose political and economic future hangs in the balance. While PSC’s 1351^st session shows that PSC’s diagnosis of the factors stalling the peace process and the transition in Libya is on mark, its prescriptions leave much to be desired. Indeed, despite the marginal progress around the signing of the AU-sponsored reconciliation charter, AU’s engagements, including PSC’s decisions, carry no significant measure that could address any of the factors entrenching and perpetuating Libya’s vicious cycle of instability.

The three incidents that took place in quick succession signify the stronghold that institutional fragmentation, the shadow economy and external interference have on the country. Libya is nowhere near the end of its stalled peace process and transition.

Zekarias Beshah, Senior Researcher, Amani Africa

Solomon Ayele Dersso, PhD, Founding Director, Amani Africa

With the African Union (AU) Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) facing a clear risk of operational incapacity when the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) ends in December 2026, Kampala hosted the second Extraordinary Summit of AUSSOM troop-contributing countries (TCCs) and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) on 31 July 2026.

The trigger for the untenability of AUSSOM’s continuation beyond December 2026 and the convening of the extraordinary summit was a letter of 1 July 2026 from the United States (US) Mission to the AU (USAU) notifying the AU Commission that the US will not support the continuation of the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) beyond the expiry of the current authorisation for AUSSOM on 31 December. Equally significantly, Washington also indicated that, although it would not object to renewal of AUSSOM’s mandate, it would not support a Security Council resolution that retained UNSOS or provided for UN logistical and operational support to the Mission.

Long before this US letter, it had been repeatedly argued that the AU and AUSSOM TCCs needed to begin considering alternatives before the Mission reached a breaking point (see here, here, and here). Yet these propositions, grounded in serious consideration of changing dynamics that necessitate the pursuit of such alternatives, were met with a largely ‘business as usual’ attitude that was not in tune with the prevailing changing realities. It was only in December 2025, during the PSC’s 1317^th session, that the Council considered three options on the future of AUSSOM presented in a report of the AU Commission. Even then, follow-up was lacking. The PSC requested the AU Commission to ‘urgently convene’ a meeting of AUSSOM TCCs/PCCs at the level of Chiefs of Defence Forces to consider the three options and submit recommendations for the Council’s consideration.

The US letter came before PSC’s directives were acted on. The contents of the letter fundamentally change the equation for AUSSOM’s immediate future at the end of December 2026. AUSSOM may still have a mandate after December, but without the logistical architecture required to implement it.

As pointed out in an earlier Amani Africa article, while AUSSOM may continue to operate with major funding shortfalls, it cannot continue with its operations without UNSOS logistics support or without finding, within the short time left, an alternative logistics support arrangement fully replacing UNSOS. Indeed, a recent policy brief rightly pointed out that UNSOS is not simply an administrative or technical support office. It is a strategic enabler without which a mission such as AUSSOM cannot operate at scale in Somalia’s exceptionally difficult operational environment.

The summit was convened to articulate a collective plan for AUSSOM in view of the end of UNSOS by December 2026. The outcome of the summit called for a unified integrated mission support capability, mandated by the UN Security Council, to continue providing uninterrupted support to the mission for a period of 18 to 24 months with the aim of enabling the implementation of agreed milestones, strengthening the capacity of Somali security institutions and facilitating the orderly transfer of security responsibilities.

Against this background, the Kampala Summit, in a clear indication that the TCCs have taken over decision-making on AUSSOM from the AU, mandated the foreign ministers of the TCCs, in coordination with the AU and the FGS, to form a Joint Task Force and engage in diplomatic outreach for predictable and sustainable financing. This includes the organisation of a donors’/partners’ conference intended to mobilise financial and political commitment.

On the option of a donors’ conference, it is to be recalled that an earlier effort for convening a donors’ conference failed to materialise. In its place, a High-Level Financing Event held in September 2025 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, which mobilised about USD 44 million, was not anything close to what the Mission required. TCCs have thus been forced to subsidise the AU mission. Efforts to mobilise substantial resources from non-traditional partners have repeatedly produced little.

There is little reason to assume, however, that another round of fundraising will fundamentally change the situation. International partners’ priorities have shifted. The political consensus that existed when the AU mission was first established two decades ago has also weakened considerably.

The feasibility of the 18-to-24-month transition period proposed by the TCCs would depend on obtaining precisely the financing and logistical support that are now least certain. This is the reality that the AU, the TCCs and Somalia increasingly need to confront. The central question is no longer simply how to preserve AUSSOM for two or three years. It is how to prevent the Mission’s financial and logistical crisis from producing a disorderly collapse with serious consequences for all the sacrifices paid with the lives and limbs of thousands of AU troops and investments made for stabilising Somalia.

It is very unlikely that an 18-to-24-month transition would secure the necessary financing and logistical support. The priority should then be to design an orderly transition—potentially within six to twelve months—during which AUSSOM would wind down and a new arrangement (such as bilateral deployment) for providing security support for Somalia would be put in place.

For AUSSOM, the lack of funding for troops nor the imminent end of UN logistics support did not come in a vacuum. In part, it is attributable to the politics of transition in Somalia that has stalled the progress towards the transfer of security responsibility to Somali forces.

Relations between the Federal Government and the Federal Member States have deteriorated sharply. Jubaland and Puntland have formally suspended cooperation with the Federal Government. Disagreements over constitutional amendments and the electoral process have further strained relations among Somali political actors. In June, these tensions reached a dangerous point when clashes erupted in Mogadishu between federal government forces and opposition-aligned forces (see here).

Since the first TCCs extraordinary summit of April 2025 held in Kampala, there has been a call for putting in place a process for addressing the political dimension of the transition in Somalia.

IGAD Deputy Executive Secretary Mohamed Abdi Ware captured the problem well in his remarks to the ministerial meeting preceding the Kampala Summit: ‘We must insist that Somalia assume responsibility for their sovereign territory in the shortest possible time.’ He also requested the TCCs Summit to secure an ‘iron-clad commitment’ from the Somali Government to pursue a political settlement. At the meeting of Chiefs of Defence Forces of TCCs on 29 July, Uganda reportedly called for Somalia to produce a roadmap for inclusive political dialogue. Somalia and Djibouti sought to defer discussion of the issue to the Summit level.

As in the first extraordinary summit of TCCs in April 2025, the aspect of the summit proposal on the political crisis in Somalia faced firm rejection from Somalia.