In May, the Republic of Sierra Leone will take the chairship of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC). The Provisional Program of Work (PPoW) for the month envisages five substantive sessions, all scheduled at the ambassadorial level and a field mission to the Republic of Guinea. Among the five sessions, only one is country-specific session on the political situation in Gabon.

On 7 May, the PSC will hold its first session of the month to receive a briefing on the AU’s support to Member States—specifically The Gambia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, and South Sudan—in the area of Security Sector Reform (SSR), focusing on lessons learned and the way forward. Notably, since its 844^th session, which focused on SSR efforts in The Gambia, the PSC has not held a dedicated session to review and assess SSR support of the AU. In the case of The Gambia, following a request in 2017, the PSC mandated a needs assessment that led to key recommendations on state-building priorities, including SSR, the rule of law, transitional justice, and human rights. The PSC endorsed the assessment during its 694^th session, resulting in the deployment of a ten-member AU Technical Support Team from 2018 to 2020 to assist national security institutions. Recognising ongoing challenges in coordinating SSR efforts, the AU Commission later deployed an SSR Consultant from October to December 2021 to provide targeted technical support. Building on these efforts, in November 2024, the AU further supported in enhancing The Gambia’s national SSR strategy, aligning it with the AU’s Operational Guidance Note on Monitoring and Evaluation. In Lesotho, the AU Commission provided similar support, focusing on capacity building through training and research to enhance strategic SSR competencies. These efforts also emphasised national ownership, self-assessment, and the development of reform action plans to guide prioritisation and resource mobilisation. In Mali, on 31 July 2024, through its mission MISAHEL, the AUC delivered technical and institutional support, particularly in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), helping to build national expertise aligned with the 2022–2024 National SSR Strategy. Complementary efforts in The Gambia also involved reviewing the national SSR process and establishing an M&E Framework to assess alignment with national security priorities and democratic principles. In South Sudan, following a request from the government and a PSC decision, the AU Commission deployed a DDR/SSR consultant from November 2023 to February 2024 to support the development of SSR guidelines under the Strategic Defence and Security Review Board (SDSRB) and the guidelines were validated in July 2024. Due to continued technical needs, particularly on SSR documentation, and in response to PSC calls for inclusive strategies to address intercommunal violence and arms management, the AU also deployed a senior DDR/SSR consultant with arms management expertise in November 2024. The session is also expected to feature briefings on best practices that can be applied in contexts where states face a high risk of relapse into conflict.

The next session, set for 12 May, will focus on addressing food insecurity and conflict in Africa. Although PSC has addressed food insecurity in the context of its annual sessions on humanitarian action in Africa, it was not until its 1083^rd session, held on 9 May 2022, that the Council dedicated a meeting specifically to the link between food security and conflict. Later that year, the PSC also explored the issue in relation to climate change. In the Communiqué adopted by the 1083^rd session, the impact of conflicts on food production and the role they play in the disruption of agricultural yields and value chains was emphasised. Of particular significance was the PSC’s condemnation of ‘any kind of conditionality for food access and the use of starvation as instruments of war and/or access to humanitarian assistance.’ Currently, this is particularly important in the war in Sudan, where access to food is used as an instrument of war and the fighting involves targeting of agricultural production. Building on its previous session, the PSC is expected to review how food insecurity and conflict intersect and the ways in which the intersection between the two manifests itself in current conflicts. In terms of countries affected by conflict, the World Bank’s March 2025 Food Security Update further highlights that nearly 25 million people in Sudan, 6.3 million in South Sudan, and 3.4 million in Somalia are facing acute food insecurity. Additionally, the session also presents the opportunity for the PSC to follow up on its previous decisions, including conducting a study with recommendations to improve food production, strengthening coordination across humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding efforts, and receiving regular briefings from regional centres on climate change, agriculture, and food security.

The third session planned for the month is an open session on Organised Transnational Crime, Peace and Security in the Sahel Region planned for 14 May. During its 845^th session held on 25 April 2019, the PSC had decided to hold an annual session on the theme of transnational organised crime and peace and security in Africa. The session comes against the backdrop of deepening security challenges in the region marked by the expanding nexus between transnational organised crime and terrorism. While the three Sahelian states: Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso had pledged to jointly address terrorism through a new regional force under the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) following their withdrawal from ECOWAS, there is concern that the disrupted flow of information, intelligence sharing and cross border cooperation could worsen the region’s response to security threats and cross-border organised crime. This lack of coordinated regional response, compounded also by the dissolution of the G5 Sahel, has increased the risk of further terrorist expansion in the central Sahel region, making the region the epicentre of global terrorism. A recent UNODC report on the impact of transnational organised crime on stability and development in the Sahel, highlights the dual role of organised crime in the Sahel noting that while it fuels violence by financing armed groups and exacerbating competition over illicit markets, it also serves as a critical livelihood source in areas with few economic alternatives, something the PSC would need to grapple with to develop effective responses. Stabilisation efforts in the Sahel have predominantly focused on terrorism and have largely underestimated the role transnational organised crime plays in driving the current situation in the Sahel. As such, the session will provide the PSC an opportunity to shape coherent continental responses that match the scale and complexity of the threat. The session would also serve the PSC to recalibrate its approach to the Sahel by coupling security cooperation with sustained diplomatic and political engagement. While strengthening coordination among AU member states’ police forces and enhancing collaboration with international partners remain essential, the AU must also ensure that suspension from its activities does not hinder its responsibility toward affected countries. The last time the PSC considered this theme was during its 1082^nd session. The session would also present an opportunity for the PSC to follow up on its decisions from that session, including its request for AFRIPOL to work in close collaboration with CISSA and INTERPOL to urgently develop a comprehensive database of persons, groups and entities involved in Transnational Organised Crimes, including Foreign Terrorist Fighters, as well as regional databases on Transnational Organised Crimes in order to guide Member States and RECs/RMs in the formulation of necessary policy interventions.

On 16 May, the PSC is scheduled to convene its second annual joint consultative meeting with the ECOWAS Mediation and Security Council (MSC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The consultative meeting is in alignment with Article 16 of the PSC Protocol, which emphasises the importance of close collaboration and policy coordination with RECs/RMs. The meeting will be an opportunity to assess progress since the inaugural session held in Abuja, Nigeria, in April 2024 and reinforce collaborative efforts against West Africa’s pressing security challenges. The inaugural consultative meeting between the Councils had urged for the immediate operationalisation and revitalisation of regional security frameworks such as the Nouakchott and Djibouti Process and synergised international and regional efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism.

On the same day, the PSC will commemorate the International Day of Living Together in Peace.

The final session of the month, scheduled for 19 May, will be dedicated to the political situation in Gabon. This will mark the PSC’s second engagement on Gabon since its 1241^st session held in October 2024, which followed the Council’s field mission to Libreville, Gabon in September 2024. Following the presidential elections held in Gabon on 12 April and the emergence of the coup leader, General Brice Oligui Nguema, as the winner of the election, the PSC convened a session on 30 April 2025 to determine whether the conclusion of the elections would mark the restoration of constitutional order in Gabon, which would warrant the lifting of the suspension placed by the AU.

Aside from these substantive sessions, the last activity of the PSC for May 2025 is expected to be a field visit to the Republic of Guinea that will take place 30-31 May 2025. In the footnote, the program of work also envisages a possible engagement of the Council with the Chairperson of the AU Commission. The last time the PSC held an interaction with the AU Commission Chairperson was in September 2019.