The month will commence with a four-day visit to Cairo and Port Sudan. The visit involves a half-day joint consultation meeting between the League of Arab States and the PSC. The last such consultation between the two bodies was held in 2010. This planned meeting aims to reactivate the consultative meeting between the two sides and discuss and agree on the periodicity and method of work of the consultation between the two sides. Substantively, it is envisaged that the consultation between the two sides would focus on matters common to the agenda of both sides notably Libya, Somalia and Sudan.

On 2-3 October, the PSC will conduct two additional engagements in Cairo. The first is a meeting on the peace, security and development nexus. On 2 October, the PSC will convene a session on this theme that will be held in person in Cairo. Held in the context of the 20^th anniversary of the PSC, this session presents an opportunity for high-level dialogue and deliberation among members of the PSC and other key stakeholders on how to overcome the gap between existing policy ambition and the actual realities of policy practice about the peace, security and development nexus. As gathered during a consultation with the Chairperson, the session will be anchored on the Aswan Forum outcome document from the recent Aswan Forum held in August 2024 in Cairo, Egypt in which representatives of PSC participated.

Despite wide recognition at a normative level of the need for aligning peace and security policy action and development policy action as reflected in various meetings the PSC held on this theme, this is not translated into practice owing to various factors including, as outlined in our Special Research Report (EN and FR), the inertia of existing practice in peace and security policy making with its focus on peace and security tools, divergent working methods and lack of interaction between peace and security policymakers and those engaged in development policy making.

The second engagement will mark the inauguration of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development (PCRD) Centre. Following the revised PCRD policy that was endorsed at the 37^th  AU Summit in February 2024, this launch marks a further step in revamping AU’s PCRD policy and institutional infrastructure. It is worth noting in this regard that the PPoW of the PSC for October envisages that the PSC is expected to initiate the launch of its Sub-Committee on PCRD. Following the inauguration of the PCRD Centre, the PSC will visit the police training academy, which serves as one of the platforms for the training of police personnel for countries contributing police capabilities to peacekeeping operations.

On 3 October, the PSC will also undertake a daytime field visit to Port Sudan. It is to be recalled that the PSC at its 1209^th PSC meeting in April of this year (and in other sessions on Sudan), expressed its desire to undertake a field mission to Port Sudan. However, this plan to visit Sudan is tied essentially to the country’s conflict situation following the outbreak of the civil war in April 2023. This visit also comes ahead of a possible visit by the UNSC to Port Sudan under the presidency of the UK in November and prior to the annual joint PSC-UNSC consultation where Sudan will feature as one of the agenda items of the consultation.

Even outside of the PSC’s decision for a field mission in relation to the war, the field mission to Port Sudan did not come as a surprise. It is a manifestation of a recent trend in the PSC for direct engagement with transitional authorities of countries suspended from the AU for unconstitutional change of government following military usurpation of power. A case in point is the PSC engagement with the leader of the military junta in Gabon as part of its field mission to Gabon during 12-14 September 2024. This approach marks a break from the established approach whereby the PSC informs its engagement on the transitional process in such countries through the AU Commission and the mechanisms put in place for such purposes by the Commission on the direction of the PSC, such as a special envoy. While this change from the established practice brings the PSC the benefit of gaging the political dynamics on the ground first-hand, it has the risk of affecting the PSC’s role in crafting its policy actions in relation to the situations it covers with a level of dispassion necessary for it to treat situations it deals with consistently and impartially. Considering the complaints from the Sovereign Council about Sudan’s suspension from the AU following the 25 October 2021 ouster from power of the civilian government by the military, the issue of the lifting of Sudan’s suspension is anticipated to feature during PSC’s engagement with the leadership of the Sovereign Council, which is the internationally recognised authority that conducts the international relations of Sudan. It is believed that this may entail a discussion on a roadmap towards the lifting of the suspension of Sudan from the AU.

On 8 October, the PSC is envisaged to initiate the launch of its Sub-Committee on PCRD. It is accordingly due to consider the adoption the Terms of Reference (ToRs) of the Sub-Committee. The membership of the Sub-Committee is envisaged to be the same as that of the Committee of Experts (CoE) of the PSC.

The PSC will hold a virtual session on 9 October to consider of the AU Commission’s annual report on combating terrorism in Africa. At its 1182^nd meeting in October 2022, the PSC in the communiqué it adopted following the consideration of the Chairperson’s report advocated for enhanced financial and military support for the Union’s counter-terrorism institutions. While there has not been any major initiative by the AU during the year, the escalation and expansion of the threat of terrorism on the continent is not showing any sign of abating. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s 2024 Global Terrorism Index (GTI), the epicentre of global terrorism has shifted from the Middle East to Africa’s Central Sahel region. By the end of 2023, data from the Africa Centre on the Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT), now known as the African Union Counter Terrorism Centre (AUCTC), revealed a 99% increase in terrorist attacks and a 53% rise in terrorism-related deaths compared to the previous year.

In preparation for the 9^th informal seminar and the 18^th joint annual consultative meeting, the CoE of the PSC will travel to New York on 13 October. They will have various engagements including with the UNSC Working Group, to work on the drafting of the joint communiqué. In the context of the PSC’s visit to New York and preparations for the annual joint consultative meeting, the PSC is expected to hold meetings with the African three members of the UNSC plus (A3 plus). It is also envisaged that the PSC will consult with the UN Peacebuilding Commission. This is expected to serve as an opportunity for projecting the voice of the PSC and the AU based on the newly revised PCRD policy ahead of the 2025 review of UN peacebuilding.  The PSC will also participate in an outreach activity that involves a lecture to be delivered at Yale University.

Ahead of the joint consultative meeting, the 9^th informal seminar will be held. As per the practice, the agenda of the informal seminar is limited to thematic issues. This year’s informal seminar is expected to feature the following themes: working methods (which may cover discussion on how to follow up on the joint communiqué in between the annual consultative meeting, the outstanding issue of joint field missions or coordination around joint field missions considering the risk of divergent messaging particularly when the PSC and the UNSC undertake field mission to the same place as happened in the context of their mission to DRC only less than two weeks apart), climate, peace and development, implementation of Resolution 2719, youth, peace and security, women, peace and security and Children Affected by Armed Conflicts (CAAC). As far as the working methods issue is concerned, the two sides may consider enhancing the reference value of the joint communiqué to start their annual consultative meeting by a systematic review of the last joint communiqué, thereby ensuring that their engagement builds on the previous consultation rather than starting from a clean slate every year.

The 18^th annual joint consultative meeting follows the informal seminar. During the consultative meeting, the UNSC and the PSC are expected to focus on country/region-specific conflict situations and peace and security dynamics. This year, the agenda of the consultative meeting would accordingly cover Sudan, Somalia, West Africa/Sahel and countering terrorism and violent extremism.

On 22 October, the PSC is expected to have the first engagement with the Permanente Representative Committee (PRC) Sub-Committee on Budget and General Supervision and Coordination on Budgetary, Financial and Administrative Matters (GSCBFAM). This session will focus on the financing of AU peace and security work including funding of peace support operations and the activities of the PSC. The goal of these discussions is to create synergy between financial resources and the peace and security initiatives undertaken by the AU. As the Chairperson indicated, there are working methods and legal issues that need to be clarified in terms of the PSC as a policy organ engaging a PRC sub-committee. This is an important issue considering that at times the PSC engages with entities that are not in terms of legal standing at par with its policy-making status, as it does, for example, with the PRC Sub-Committee on Democracy, Governance and Human Rights.

The PSC will hold a session on 23 October for the consideration of the reports on its missions to Cairo and Port Sudan.

On 25 October, the Council will have a virtual session to receive an update on the situation in Somalia and post-ATMIS arrangements with a specific focus on the preservation of State Institutions. Key developments influencing this discussion include the UNSC meeting scheduled for 11 October, the Secretary-General’s engagement with the AU Commission chair on 21 October, as well as the SG’s report on ATMIS/Somalia, based on consultations with the AUC chair, which will be submitted to the UNSC on 15 November. The session is unlikely to cover the ATMIS drawdown, as consultations between the AUC and the FGS are still ongoing.

During the last week of the month, the Council will engage in three thematic sessions. On 29 October, the PSC will receive an ICRC briefing on the humanitarian situation in Africa. The following day, 30 October, the PSC will hold an open session on Women, Peace and Security in the context of the annual Resolution 1325 anniversary.

Lastly, on 31 October, the Council is scheduled to convene a session on Climate Change, Peace and Security where it will address the consultations undertaken by the AU Commission on the Common African Position which took place in August in Nairobi, Kenya. Over the three days, participants worked to improve the draft Common African Position on Climate Change, Peace, and Security (CAP-CCPS). They offered key recommendations for its enhancement and developed a revised draft intended for submission to the PSC for consideration and potential adoption.