Consultative Meeting Between the Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP)
Consultative Meeting Between the Peace and Security Council (PSC) and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) Date | 18 August 2026
Tomorrow (19 August), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) is expected to convene its 1362nd Session dedicated to a Consultation between the PSC and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP).
The PSC Chair for the month and Permanent Representative of Algeria to the AU, Mohamed Khaled, will deliver the opening remarks. The Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), Bankole Adeoye, is also expected to make a statement. The President of PAP, Fateh Boutbig of Algeria, is also expected to deliver a statement. This will be his first time briefing the PSC following his election to serve as president of the institution in April 2026, during the Extraordinary Session of the Seventh Legislature held at the PAP headquarters in Midrand, South Africa. He will serve for a three-year term, to 2029.
It is worth recalling that the annual engagement emanates from the decision of the 1160th Meeting held in June 2023, which was dedicated to the annual consultative meeting between the two bodies. From the meeting, the two bodies decided to institutionalise and regularise their annual joint meeting on peace and security in Africa, to be hosted alternately between Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Midrand, South Africa. The annual consultation is grounded in two complementary legal foundations. First, the mandates of the PAP and the PSC are closely linked. According to the 2001 Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to the PAP, one of the PAP’s central objectives is to promote peace, security and stability. As a result, the PAP’s mandate has a component that overlaps with that of the PSC, even though the PSC retains primary responsibility for peace and security matters. Second, and more importantly, the session will also be held pursuant to Article 18 of the PSC Protocol. This provision calls for a close working relationship between the PSC and the PAP, in recognition of the complementary nature of the roles each body plays in advancing peace, security and stability across the continent.
This year’s meeting will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, building on the 1290th meeting held in July 2025, in which it adopted the Conclusions of their Inaugural Joint Consultative meeting held on 17 and 18 July 2025 in Midrand, South Africa. In an effort to give greater structure and substance to their cooperation, the two bodies agreed on several concrete steps to strengthen their collaboration. These commitments are expected to be central to this year’s discussions, alongside an update on activities conducted since the past interaction vis-à-vis issues related to advancing peace, security and stability in Africa.
Firstly, the session comes just days after PAP’s First Ordinary Session of the Seventh Legislature and the launch of its three new Model Laws, namely: i) Model Law on Gender Equality and Equity ii) Model Law on Labour Migration and iii) Model Law on Sustainable Soil Management, established to provide voluntary legislative frameworks to guide AU Member States in developing and strengthening national laws in line with Agenda 2063. This follows a call made from the Inaugural session between PSC and PAP on the need to adopt a model law on AU Agenda 2063. In this context, Member States were ‘encouraged to adopt and integrate the agenda into their national policy frameworks and programs, including aligning national development plans with the continental framework and ensuring that the agenda’s goals and priorities are reflected in national policies and legislation.’
Secondly, the PAP and PSC Secretariats were tasked to jointly develop a draft roadmap on structured collaboration between the two organs, identifying concrete areas of cooperation and mechanisms for monitoring progress. This also included the need for experience sharing and lessons learned between the two organs on issues related to peace and security and governance, as well as capacity building in areas such as mediation and preventive diplomacy. It is expected that tomorrow’s session will give an opportunity to get an update on this particular decision, given that the draft roadmap was ‘to be presented at the next Joint Consultative Meeting between the PSC and PAP.’ It will provide an opportunity for the two bodies to assess the evolution of their engagement and how they can translate their complementary mandates into more regular and coordinated action. The two bodies previously called for structured and regularised engagement between them, including through the establishment of clear thematic areas of focus and fostering communication and collaboration through various mechanisms.
Relatedly, and in furtherance of a call made from the conclusions of the Inaugural meeting on ‘the need for regular engagement between the PSC and PAP though, among others, PSC Chairperson participating in PAP Sessions, the PSC Troika/PAP bureau engagement,’ the PSC Chair for July 2026, Rebecca Otengo, Permanent Representative of Uganda to the AU, participated in a joint capacity-building training by the PAP Committee on Justice and Human Rights and the Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution on the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance facilitated by the secretariat of the AGA-APSA Platform, to advance democratic governance in Africa.
The PSC’s relevance, in this context, extended beyond Ambassador Otengo’s participation in the capacity-building training. The Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution (CCIRCR), one of the ten Permanent Committees of PAP, during the Permanent Committee sittings held from 21-25 July 2026 in Midrand, South Africa, convened a joint sitting alongside the Permanent Committee on Justice and Human Rights. It is worth noting that pursuant to Rule 26(d) of the PAP Rules of Procedure, the CCIRCR has specific responsibility for introducing issues of peace and security in Africa for consideration of the Chamber. This July joint session focused on addressing the security crisis in Sudan, its humanitarian impact and developing recommendations for African-led intervention and civilian protection, calling for the Pan-African Parliament to consider convening a dedicated parliamentary session on Sudan to help the Parliament monitor the implementation of decisions of the AU PSC and the recommendations of the African Commission’s Fact-Finding Mission.
In its consultative/advisory role, PAP has since its earlier years sent various fact-finding missions to different conflict areas across the continent, including Côte d’Ivoire, Darfur/Sudan, Libya, Rwanda, Mauritania and Chad. These missions have produced reports used to inform recommendations, and PAP has also adopted resolutions addressing specific conflicts. Despite PAP’s mandate to forward these recommendations to relevant bodies, including the PSC, no standing mechanism exists for systematically transmitting them. For much of PAP’s history, this gap was compounded by the near-total absence of direct engagement between the two organs, particularly between 2008 and 2023. Only two interactive sessions took place under Article 18 of the PSC Protocol, in 2008 and 2012. That pattern has, however, begun to shift when the two bodies held a Joint Consultative Meeting in July 2025, and tomorrow’s session is expected to be a follow-up session to discuss a roadmap for structured collaboration. Even so, this emerging engagement has centred on institutional relations rather than on a dedicated channel for PAP’s fact-finding recommendations specifically, so it remains difficult to assert that the Parliament’s recommendations have been directly reflected in PSC decisions.
Beyond this, there are also institutional challenges that affect the effective operationalisation of the relationship. One such challenge relates to the continued non-ratification of the 2014 Protocol to the Constitutive Act of the AU Relating to PAP (the 2014 PAP Protocol), which seeks to provide the PAP with an enhanced legislative mandate within the AU institutional framework. In its February 2026 decision, the AU Assembly requested ‘the Bureau of PAP and all PAP Members of Parliament with the support of the AUC to intensify sensitisation and outreach to Member States on the ratification of the Malabo Protocol.’ Today, around 23 Member States have signed and 15 have deposited the instrument of ratification for the 2014 PAP Protocol. It is worth noting that progress remains slow, with the Protocol still well short of the majority of 28 AU Member States required for entry into force. Drawing on PSC’s experience with other AU bodies, notably the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights under Article 19 of the PSC Protocol, it would be most effective for the proposal on operationalising Article 18 to come from PAP itself, having regard to its mandate and how that mandate can best be leveraged in implementing the objectives of the PSC Protocol.
Financing issues may also feature during the discussions. The two bodies previously called for ‘advocacy for increased AU Member State voluntary contributions to the Peace Fund, to advance African ownership and self-reliance in peace and security financing.’ In this regard, and in addition to the call for the development of a plan of action to identify concrete areas of collaboration and monitor progress, they also agreed to establish a corresponding financing plan, to support peace and security activities involving both organs.
The youth dimension, on the other hand, is also likely to be discussed. The Conclusions of the Inaugural consultations highlighted ‘the growing disillusionment among Africa’s youth, marked by unemployment, social exclusion, and political apathy [and] underlined the need for more inclusion of youth, and women in all efforts aimed at addressing the conflicts on the continent and in Africa’s development agenda.’ The previous meeting highlighted the need for ‘the PAP to champion the establishment of socio-economic programs aimed at economically empowering people, especially women, youth, children and special interest groups on the continent, including post-conflict reconstruction and development programmes.’
The outcome of the session is expected to be a Communiqué. The PSC is expected to welcome the new leadership of PAP and commend the body for its contribution to the promotion of peace, security, stability and for representing the African people in the development and integration of the Continent. The PSC is also expected to welcome updates from the PAP on the activities undertaken in relation to peace and security and to continue cooperation through the annual consultative meeting within the framework of Article 18. The session is also likely to encourage those Member States who have not yet done so to consider signing and ratifying the Protocol to the Constitutive Act of the AU relating to the PAP. The meeting may also stress the importance of regular engagement and coordination of the two bodies’ efforts in complementing each other in addressing governance, peace and security challenges. The meeting may underline the imperative for the two organs to actively advocate for the reform of global institutions to better represent African interests and ensure more equitable global governance. Finally, the PSC may also stress the imperative of establishing a mechanism for the communication of decisions and recommendations of PAP on peace and security in order to ensure coherence and complementarity in decision-making processes.