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.