INTRODUCTION

Against the background of the persistence and escalation of threats to physical & social security of women and girls amid escalating and persisting conflicts, shrinking civic space, and the marginalisation of women from peace processes in various settings on the continent, this special research report examines the Peace and Security Council’s (PSC) fifteen-year engagement with the WPS agenda, assessing both progress achieved and enduring gaps. It situates PSC deliberations within Africa’s evolving conflict dynamics and evaluates the extent to which normative advances have translated into operational impact across conflict prevention, mediation, peace support operations, and accountability mechanisms. The report argues that renewed political will, institutional coherence, and sustained resourcing are essential to ensure that the WPS agenda functions not only as a set of principles, but as a strategic tool for addressing Africa’s contemporary peace and security challenges.

SUMMARY

This Special report explores the potential for networked multilateralism to facilitate a more inclusive system of global governance through building networked policy exchanges and policy making between Addis Ababa and Geneva, two major global policy hubs. In response to shifting global power dynamics and complex challenges, it argues for a more connected, flexible, and inclusive multilateral system that leverages and draws on the role of multilateral diplomatic hubs and centres of decision-making in different parts of the world. Addis Ababa, as Africa’s diplomatic capital, excels in diplomatic negotiation for consensus-building and advancing regional priorities and global solidarity for a fairer global system, while Geneva offers a dense ecosystem of international organizations and technical expertise. Closer collaboration between the two diplomatic hubs could enable both to leverage their strengths, thereby becoming the example in practicing and organising networked multilateralism. Addis Ababa could access Geneva’s science diplomacy, data governance, and urban planning expertise, while Geneva could benefit from Addis’s experience in political negotiation, youth and gender inclusion, and Africa’s role as a major centre where current policy issues around energy transition and critical minerals and understanding African interests. Structured exchanges, joint research, and dedicated liaison platforms are recommended to operationalize this partnership. By moving beyond fragmented interactions, a structured and dynamic Addis-Geneva nexus can enhance collective action, better reflect African priorities in global forums, and model innovative approaches to global governance challenges.

ABOUT THIS REVIEW

2025  turned out to be a year when ‘[t]hings fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.’ The conflicts and crises as well as geopolitical events shaping the political and security landscape of Africa unfolded during the year as ‘things fall apart’ in the world. Fundamentally, the bleak peace and security situation of the continent of the past years have become acute, crystalising the continent’s ‘new era of insecurity and instability’. As noted in a recent article prefacing this annual review, ‘[a] cross the continent, armed conflict, state fragmentation, humanitarian collapse, economic distress, climate shocks, democratic erosion, and geopolitical entanglement  are converging with a simultaneity and intensity unseen in recent decades.’ The presence of such conflict and crisis situations is not fundamentally particular to 2025. Apart from their intensification, what stands out and became apparent from the political, diplomatic and security events of 2025 is that many of the conflicts and crises are here to stay for the foreseeable future.

On 24 September 2025, the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene at summit level on the margins of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to deliberate on the theme Re-energising Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa. This is a timely subject due to two interrelated developments. First, the continent has witnessed a marked increase in the number of conflicts, their geographic spread, and their human toll and socio-economic consequences. Second, the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) has struggled to respond effectively to these mounting challenges. The lead on initiatives for crises  in Libya and most recently in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo–Rwanda, and tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia are taken by states outside of the continent, with the AU playing at best a ceremonial role. Together with the erosion of multilateralism, intensifying geopolitical rivalries, and rising foreign involvement in African peace and security affairs, these developments underscore the urgent need for the AU to recalibrate and strengthen its conflict prevention and resolution role.

This report is the outcome of the project of the African Union Commission’s (AUC) Department for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), in partnership with the Embassy of Switzerland in Addis Ababa and Amani Africa Media and Research Services (Amani Africa), initiated to foster structured dialogue with African youth on the nexus between YPS and the New Agenda for Peace. Accordingly, regional dialogues were held between 31 July and 7 August 2024 across Central, East, North, South and West Africa. These dialogues provided a platform for young people to share their perspectives on the future of peace and security in Africa and globally. The regional consultations were followed by a three-day continental consultation to synthesise all the regional perspectives and proffer practical recommendations. This report captures the voice of African youth representatives that seeks to contribute to the broader conversations around the implementation of the New Agenda for Peace, highlighting how youth voices are and should be made central to the global peace and security discourse.

The 2025 African Union (AU) theme of the year is ‘Justice for Africans and peoples of African descent through reparations.’ This special  research report  introduces the  background to the theme of the year and examines how  the focus on  remedying  the way the international system is shaped by these historical injustices can help narrow the gap between the commitments of international human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals on the one hand and how the international financial and trading system operate in practice vis-à-vis Africa and parts of the world affected by slavery and colonialism.

This report outlines what could constitute Africa’s key messages to the Berlin Ministerial Conference, informed by the continent’s extensive experience with peacekeeping operations and the imperative to harness the complementarity between UN and African Union (AU) efforts, while also situating the debate on the future of peacekeeping within the broader context of an evolving multilateral system. It then proceeds to highlight specific steps for enhancing the UN-AU partnership, drawing directly from the conclusions of the study on the future of peacekeeping. In its concluding section, the report underscores the relevance of peacekeeping to today’s peace and security challenges while continuing to adapt to remain fit for purpose, as well as its significance as an essential component of the very multilateral architecture that, in spite of its shortcomings, nonetheless offers Africa its most effective platform for advancing its agenda and interests on the global stage.

The most profound and pressing policy issue for peace and security diplomacy in Sudan is how to advance the protection of civilians. While there is growing appreciation of the need for protection of civilians, there remain lack of policy clarity on how this can be achieved practically in a war where conditions are lacking for the use of conventional mechanisms for protection of civilians, such as notably the deployment of an international protection force. The purpose of this special research report, which draws on a series of meetings held with Sudanese civilians and experts in Kampala, New York and Addis Ababa during the past few months, is to provide analysis of various options for the protection of civilians in Sudan that can be pursued with urgency as the search for successful negotiation for a ceasefire and final political settlement continues.

When the STG was first announced, seven years to 2020, the conflict landscape on the continent was not in as bad a shape as it is today. At the end of the first ten years of STGs at the end of 2023, only six years are left to 2030, almost the same length of time when the AU pledged in 2013 to silence the guns by 2020. As the guns get much louder today than ten years ago, questions abound not only on AU’s possession of the requisite strategy and means but also on whether it is acting with the urgency and decisiveness that the situation on the continent warrants.

While the inadequacy of the progress made is not on its own a problem, it is of paramount policy significance to have a clear picture of the extent of the setback that the AU’s STGs agenda has faced in terms of Africa’s peace and security outlook and the nature of this regression. Such clarity is critical to recalibrate the strategy and the approach to STGs and to mobilize the kind as well as nature of the response that the peace and security landscape on the continent warrants.

The first purpose of this memo is accordingly to elevate into the consciousness of policy makers the nature and gravity of the deterioration of the peace and security situation of the continent, with some deserving to be treated as situations of utmost emergency. More and more people are suffering from the plethora of peace and security threats that are compounded by the economic and governance woes facing many countries on the continent. Correspondingly, this research memo to enable the incoming AU Commission leadership adopt measures for changing the current peace and security situation by undertaking a strategic review of the situation and AU’s processes including the STGs and setting a new agenda for peace and security in Africa that has the prospect of success to achieve STGs.