Tomorrow (2 September), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) is expected to convene its 1368th meeting to discuss the theme, ‘Protection of Child Soldiers in Africa (UNSCR 1612 (2005)).’

Following opening remarks by Hervé Djokpe, Permanent Representative of Benin to the AU and Chairperson of the PSC for September, Bankole Adeoye, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), is expected to make a statement. Jainaba Jagne, AU Special Envoy for Children Affected by Armed Conflict (CAAC), is also expected to make a statement, followed by Robert Doya Nanima, Special Rapporteur on Children and Armed Conflict. In addition, the session is also likely to get statements from the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, a representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to the AU and a representative from the African Platform on Children affected by Armed Conflicts (AP CAAC) – as Co-Chair. A Save the Children representative may also be present.

It is worth recalling that UN Security Council Resolution 1612, adopted in 2005, established the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on children and armed conflict, creating a systematic framework for documenting the six grave violations against children in conflict zones, which include killing and maiming, recruitment and use as child soldiers, sexual violence, attacks on schools and hospitals, abduction and denial of humanitarian access.

The UN Secretary-General’s 2026 annual report on children and armed conflict, released in June and covering January–December 2025, which also marked the 30^th anniversary of the mandate, verified 38,558 grave violations against 24,174 children, including 3,176 subjected to multiple violations. For the first time in three decades of UN monitoring, state and government forces were responsible for more grave violations than non-state armed groups, a significant shift from the pattern that has traditionally shaped PSC discussions on the issue. Among African situations, the DRC (4,114 violations), Nigeria (2,560) and Somalia (2,195) recorded the highest verified totals, ranking among the five worst-affected situations globally. Recruitment and use of children remained a major concern, continuing a trend identified in the 2025 report, which recorded 7,402 verified cases worldwide. In a February 2026 Joint Statement by the AU, EU and UN on the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers, it was highlighted that one in five children worldwide lives in conflict-affected settings. The statement went further and called on all parties in conflict situations to ‘comply fully with international law, to immediately and unconditionally release all children from their ranks, and to ensure that children associated with parties to conflict are treated first and foremost as victims.’

The PSC, on its part, has a long track record of engaging with the issue of child soldiers, having taken it up in substantive discussions and decisions across several sessions. Notably, at its 420^th session, held on 18 February 2014, the Council decided, among other things, to hold a session each year dedicated to issues affecting children on the continent. This engagement has since intensified, with the PSC now holding even two sessions annually on the theme. This will be the second session this year under the theme of child protection in Conflict Situations, following the Council’s 1357^th meeting in August 2026, which focused on ‘Education in Conflict Situations in Africa.’

From the meeting, the PSC tasked the AU Commission, in coordination with the ACERWC, ‘to organise an advocacy meeting with Member States that have not yet signed or ratified relevant international and continental instruments [including the ACERWC] and the Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict… and to report back to the PSC.’ In the same vein, the PSC went further and tasked the AU Commission, ‘based on documented sources and proven evidence, to develop and maintain a concise, disaggregated continental monitoring framework tracking attacks on schools, closures, military use, safe reopening, enrolment, retention, learning outcomes, and inclusion metrics.’ It is worth recalling that the same meeting considered the implementation matrix as part of the PSC working documents developed following the 1296^th PSC meeting, which aims to translate Council decisions into 18 time-bound actions with designated lead institutions. This implementation matrix model should extend to the PSC’s entire body of work on children and armed conflict. Many past decisions on the theme remain hard to track precisely because they were never anchored to a time-bound implementation tool. Retroactively applying the matrix, even in condensed form, would let the Council audit what has actually been delivered against decades of commitments, rather than simply ‘recalling’ prior sessions without clarity on follow-through. This would also ease the resourcing and coordination gaps flagged periodically, make duplication easier to spot, and give the Council a concrete basis for review each time it revisits the theme.

In addition, its 1314^th meeting held in November 2025 on ‘Children Affected by Armed Conflicts’ tasked the Chairperson of the AU Commission to ‘commission a comprehensive study on the nexus between armed conflicts and violations against children.’ Relatedly, the 1262^nd PSC meeting held in February 2025 on the ‘Fight Against the Use of Child Soldiers in Africa’ tasked the ACERWC to expedite finalisation of the comprehensive study on child soldiers in Africa. Earlier this year, ACERWC initiated and commissioned the Terms of Reference for the conduct of the study. The study will aim to examine the nature, scale, patterns and drivers of the recruitment and use of children by armed forces and armed groups in West and Central Africa, including the DRC, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso and Mali. In North, East and Southern Africa, it will include Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Mozambique. The study will assess the political, socio-economic, security, governance and community-level factors driving emerging risks, and to evaluate the adequacy, effectiveness and alignment of existing legal, policy, institutional, prevention, accountability, rehabilitation and reintegration responses with the African Children’s Charter and relevant regional and international standards. It will also seek to identify key gaps and good practices and put forward actionable recommendations to strengthen coordinated, multidisciplinary, and child-centred responses among States Parties, AU organs, RECs, National Human Rights Institutions, civil society organisations, communities and other relevant stakeholders.

This upcoming PSC meeting will therefore provide an opportunity to follow up on the implementation of these decisions and provide a platform for the Council to reflect on the conclusions of the Banjul Process, which took place in December 2023. During this ministerial, high-level session, participants agreed on the imperative to ‘develop a Continental Child Justice Framework addressing both punitive measures and, as well as the recourse and restitution elements for child survivors.’

The expected outcome of the session is a communiqué.  The PSC is expected to condemn all attacks against children and their abduction and recruitment by armed groups and to strictly comply with International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law. Taking note of her appointment in February 2026, Council is also likely to emphasise the imperative of providing the office of Jainaba Jagne, the AU Special Envoy on CAAC, with the necessary financial, human and technical resources to enable her to discharge her mandate effectively. It may also reiterate its previous calls on Member States who have not yet done so to sign, ratify and domesticate the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and other international instruments, such as the Safe Schools Declaration and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child with regard to the inclusion of children in armed conflicts. It may also encourage Member States to integrate mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), school feeding, water and sanitation (WASH), and child protection referral pathways into education responses. The PSC may also reiterate the need for Member States, RECs/RMs, and the AU Commission to mainstream child protection in early warning mechanisms and conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacemaking and peace-building processes, as well as in post-conflict reconstruction and development.

Tomorrow (24 August), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1364^th meeting to discuss the theme ‘Coordination between the African Union Counter Terrorism Centre (AUCTC) – the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) – the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA) – the African Union Mechanism for Police Cooperation (AFRIPOL) on Continental Early Warning System (CEWS): Validation of the Continental Threats Assessment and Risks Mapping Tool and APRM Early Warning System (EWS).’

Following opening remarks by Mohamed Khaled, Permanent Representative of Algeria to the AU and the Chairperson of the PSC for the month of August, Bankole Adeoye, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), will make a statement. The representatives of AUCTC, APRM, CISSA and AFRIPOL are then expected to deliver briefings.

The last time the PSC met on the theme of Early Warning was in December 2025 at its 1320^th meeting. From the communiqué, the PSC, among other things, underlined the need to strengthen the analytical convergence between AUCTC, CISSA, AFRIPOL and the RECs/RMs. The same meeting further saw the PSC reiterating its request to the AU Commission ‘to collaborate with AUCTC, AFRIPOL, CISSA and APRM to introduce and institutionalise a dynamic tool for mapping risks and threats to peace and security in Africa, as adopted by the PSC through its communiqué PSC/PR/COMM.1298 (2025) of 27 August 2025, in order to enable Council to enhance its conflict prevention efforts.’ It is expected that this will be central to the discussions therein. Noteworthy also, the session comes just slightly over a month following PSC Committee of Experts level consultations on the ‘Proposed AU Model on Trigger Mechanism for Early Warning and Early Action,’ held in July 2026. The proposed model ‘seeks to strengthen timely and proportionate AU responses by establishing clear triggers, thresholds and response options to address emerging risks before they escalate into violent conflict.’ It is expected to serve as a decision-support tool for the PSC, connecting early warning analysis with preventive action through existing AU governance and peace and security mechanisms.

The session comes amidst continuing security crises and an ever-evolving security landscape whose scale, complexity and changing character increasingly outpace the capacity of existing early-warning architecture.  The Global Terrorism Index 2026 report recorded 5,582 terrorism deaths across 2,944 incidents in 2025, a 28 per cent fall from the previous year, with the impact of terrorism falling in 81 countries, the highest number of annual improvements since 2021 Sub-Saharan Africa remains the global epicenter, accounting for over half of all terrorism fatalities, with six of the ten most-impacted countries located on the continent: Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia, and the DRC. Fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence in Africa surpassed 20,000 for the fourth consecutive year, spread across the Sahel, Somalia, the Lake Chad Basin, and Mozambique. In the Sahel specifically, JNIM (al-Qaeda-linked) and ISWAP/ISSP (Islamic State-linked) now collectively control more territory than at any point since the 2012 Mali crisis, with JNIM combining guerrilla attacks with governance strategies, providing basic services and arbitration in areas under its control.

With the evolving security landscape, there have also been significant operational shifts. Drone warfare has become a genuine insurgent capability. In Nigeria’s northeast, ISWAP is deploying combat drones in the Lake Chad basin at operational scale for the first time. Amani Africa’s Special Research Report, ‘Towards a New Agenda for Peace and Security in Africa: New Security Threats and the Future of the Peace and Security Council’ highlighted that one of the new security threats in Africa arises from the expansion of the use of emerging technologies. In addition, jihadist groups are no longer content with launching attacks; rather, they now administer territories and control trade routes, with their influence gradually pushing all the way to the Gulf of Guinea. JNIM’s strategy against Mali in 2026 illustrates a shift toward strangulation rather than storming capitals: JNIM formally declared an economic blockade of Bamako in April 2026, exploiting the fact that Mali imports about 95% of its fuel by road, with convoy attacks causing rationing, fuel queues and power shortages. Previously, the AU Commission, CISSA, AFRIPOL and AUCTC, were tasked to ‘thoroughly investigate the scourge of illicit financial flows, highlighting the networks and to report to PSC as soon as possible’ and called for ‘the establishment of a continental working group on illicit financing, which will inter alia, ensure the mapping of hawala/mobile money networks used by extremist terrorist groups and networks and the launch of a cross-border early warning protocol for suspicious transfers linked to convergence zones.’

Institutionally, the AU’s February 2026 Assembly decision called for the full operationalisation of the Continental Security Cartography and directed the AU Commission, together with AUCTC, AFRIPOL, CISSA and APRM, to establish a dynamic and continuously updated risk-mapping tool capable of providing the PSC with ‘a consolidated picture of threats, vulnerabilities, and potential triggers’. It also called for fast-tracking the CEWS–AUCTC Joint Analytical Cell, closer harmonisation of RECs/RMs early-warning tools with CEWS, and development of a draft AU Early Action Guideline that ‘defines triggers, thresholds, and institutionalises response with timelines’ for consideration by the PSC. Taken together, these measures situate the forthcoming validation within a broader effort to move from parallel institutional reporting towards a more integrated continental risk picture and to strengthen the link between early warning and early action. The validation exercise therefore provides an opportunity to assess whether the emerging risk-mapping architecture is being designed as a decision-support mechanism capable of prompting timely preventive action, rather than as another analytical product whose warnings are not systematically translated into response.

The process acquired further operational content at the 1345^th PSC meeting on ‘Transnational Organised Crimes’ held in May 2026. The session saw the AU Commission, AFRIPOL, AUCTC, CISSA and APRM being tasked to ‘finalise by the end of 2026 a matrix of risks and threats to peace and security in Africa as a tool of the Continental Early Warning System.’ It also tasked AFRIPOL, in coordination with the Commission and RECs/RMs, to establish a continental criminal-intelligence mechanism for the ‘continuous mapping, analysis and dissemination of criminal flows, corridors and networks’ and to produce an annual consolidated continental threat assessment. This broadens the scope of continental early warning beyond conventional conflict indicators to include the evolving nexus among terrorism, organised crime, illicit economies and cross-border security threats.

The governance dimension has advanced in parallel. At its 1349^th meeting, the PSC welcomed the APRM’s development of ‘an early warning system dedicated to governance within the APRM’ and its inclusion in the matrix of risks and threats being finalised by relevant AU structures, while urging Member States to integrate APRM assessments into CEWS. The Joint Burayu Declaration similarly called for institutionalised data- and information-sharing so that APRM country findings ‘feed systematically into APSA early warning and mediation planning,’ within the wider coordination involving AUCTC, AFRIPOL and CISSA. This direction was reinforced by the 35^th APRM Forum in February 2026, which called for efforts to ‘position the APRM as an effective early-warning tool for conflict prevention on the continent,’ and by the March engagement between the AUC Deputy Chairperson and APRM leadership, where discussions focused particularly on ‘governance monitoring, early warning and conflict prevention.’ The key question is therefore whether governance indicators will be integrated into a common analytical picture rather than treated as a parallel stream of information.

The most recent 1354^th ministerial session on counter-terrorism held in July 2026 added another specialised layer. Alongside adopting the African Union Continental Strategic Plan of Action on Countering Terrorism in Africa (2026 -2030), the Council called for ‘specific indicators on radicalisation and violent extremism’ to be integrated into CEWS ‘to enable early detection and timely intervention.’ This places terrorism-specific early warning within the implementation of a broader continental counter-terrorism framework. Taken together with parallel efforts on criminal intelligence and governance-related risks, these decisions point to an increasingly ambitious system in which terrorism analysis, criminal intelligence, governance vulnerabilities and broader conflict indicators are expected to inform one continental warning architecture. The expected outcome of the session is a communiqué. The PSC is expected to take note of the briefings by AUCTC, APRM, CISSA and AFRIPOL and may welcome progress towards validation of the Continental Threats Assessment and Risks Mapping Tool and the APRM Early Warning System. Council may underscore that the validation should support the institutionalisation of a dynamic and continuously updated continental risk-mapping mechanism capable of providing an integrated picture of emerging threats, vulnerabilities and potential triggers. It may further emphasise the need for the validated tools to strengthen analytical convergence among AUCTC, APRM, CISSA, AFRIPOL and CEWS, including through common analytical standards, greater methodological alignment and secure information-sharing arrangements. Building on earlier decisions, the PSC may emphasise the imperative of regular consolidated horizon-scanning briefings covering emerging and escalating risks, indicators requiring preventive action, cross-border contagion dynamics and scenario options requiring Council guidance, while also encouraging systematic circulation of early-warning products to Member States to inform timely responses. It may also call for adequate technical, human and financial resources for the operationalisation, regular updating and sustained use of the tools, and for governance-related risks identified through the APRM EWS, alongside specialised terrorism and organised-crime indicators, to be systematically incorporated into the broader CEWS architecture.

Tomorrow (21 August), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1363^rd session for a consultation with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR).

Following opening remarks by Mohamed Khaled, Permanent Representative of Algeria to the AU and Chairperson of the PSC for August, Bankole Adeoye, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), is expected to deliver a statement. The Chairperson of the ACHPR is also expected to deliver a briefing to the PSC on the ACHPR’s work as it relates to peace and security.

The consultative meeting is being convened pursuant to Article 19 of the PSC Protocol, which calls for close cooperation between the PSC and the ACHPR in advancing peace, security, and stability across the continent. Building on this provision, the PSC, at its 866^th Session in August 2019, resolved to institutionalise the engagement through annual joint consultative sessions with the ACHPR. This commitment rests on a shared legal and normative foundation: Article 3(f) of the PSC Protocol identifies the promotion of human rights as integral to conflict prevention, Article 45 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights mandates the ACHPR to promote and protect the rights of individuals and communities, and Article 23 of the African Charter affirms the right of all peoples to live in peace and security. Taken together, these provisions position the PSC-ACHPR consultation as the institutional space through which the AU’s peace and security architecture and its human rights architecture are meant to speak to one another.

Tomorrow’s meeting follows the 1284^th session held on 19 June 2025, which marked the resumption of joint consultations after a three-year interruption. While the session reaffirmed its commitment to deepening collaboration with the ACHPR, notably through consistent information exchange and by institutionalising and regularising the consultation as an annual fixture, the session outcome document was largely couched in general terms and missed critical opportunities to operationalise concrete cooperation. Specifically, the session failed to build upon practical modalities established during the 866^th session.

The overarching question for the consultation is how the PSC and ACHPR can pool their respective mandates, tools and networks to translate human rights protection into a more effective conflict prevention, peacebuilding and sustaining peace. This matters because human rights violations are not only consequences of armed conflict but can themselves function as early-warning indicators and drivers of conflict. The ACHPR’s own report on addressing Human Rights issues in conflict situations has identified monitoring and response, prevention, the mainstreaming of human rights across the conflict cycle, remedial action and institutional coordination as the areas requiring the greatest attention. Its Special Rapporteurs, Working Groups, and fact-finding and promotional missions generate a significant body of information and expertise that could strengthen the PSC’s preventive and protective action, provided that information is translated into timely political engagement rather than remaining confined within the human rights system.

The effectiveness of these mechanisms, however, also depends on their ability to draw on information and perspectives from actors closest to the situations they monitor. This places civil society organisations at an important intersection between human rights monitoring and the AU’s peace and security efforts. CSOs can channel information from communities that might not otherwise reach AU institutions, contribute to early warning, document violations, support victims and survivors, facilitate dialogue, and contribute to accountability and reconciliation. The ACHPR’s Joint Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan illustrates this value directly: its evidentiary record has drawn substantially on testimony from victims, witnesses and other stakeholders, including through direct engagement with Sudanese refugees in Chad, and its mandate, extended in May 2026, emphasised the need for independent monitoring, preservation of evidence, a victim-centred approach, accountability and civilian protection. The relevance of this channel is sharpened by deteriorating civic space in several conflict and crisis settings, which the ACHPR addressed directly in its June 2026 Resolution ACHPR/Res.663 (LXXXVII) on the Situation of Human and Peoples’ Rights Defenders in Africa, expressing concern over the criminalisation of legitimate civil society activity and calling on States to protect freedoms of association and peaceful assembly. The consultation could therefore explore how the ACHPR’s extensive networks of NGOs, National Human Rights Institutions and special mechanisms might be connected more systematically to the PSC’s early-warning and conflict-prevention architecture, while ensuring that civil society actors engaged in this work are themselves protected, an approach that could strengthen the quality and timeliness of information available to the Council, particularly where official reporting is limited, contested or delayed.

The Sudan experience illustrates the potential of such cooperation in practice. The ACHPR’s Joint Fact-Finding Mission, established in 2024 and extended for a further year in May 2026, has documented serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, and its May 2026 Banjul Joint Declaration with the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission stressed that a sustainable future for Sudan requires an inclusive, civilian-led political process with the meaningful participation of women, youth, civil society and communities from all regions, treating human rights findings, political process and peacebuilding as connected rather than separate tracks. A similar logic runs through the Commission’s other conflict-related work: its recent promotional mission to the DRC highlighted the continuing human rights and humanitarian consequences of conflict there, while its earlier engagement on South Sudan linked escalating violence to stalled implementation of the peace agreement. Both cases underline the value of ensuring the ACHPR’s country-level findings reach the PSC while situations remain under active consideration, rather than only after the fact, and both point toward the accountability question that the 953^rd and 1019^th sessions had already begun to address. At those sessions, the Council acknowledged the ACHPR’s contribution to transitional justice and called for the peaceful resolution of conflicts through dialogue, negotiation, mediation and consensual transitional justice mechanisms, alongside investigation of violations and accountability for perpetrators. Tomorrow’s consultation offers an occasion to examine how that expertise can complement the PSC’s political and mediation efforts more directly, including on reparations, reconciliation and guarantees of non-recurrence.

Tomorrow’s session is also expected to centre on the strategic priorities of the ACHPR’s new Bureau and their contribution to peace and security. The election of a new Bureau in October 2025, the adoption of the Commission’s Strategic Plan 2026 – 2028, and the subsequent adoption of the implementation, planning, monitoring and evaluation frameworks by the 87th Ordinary Session, provide an opportunity for the PSC to engage early with the Bureau’s priorities and identify areas of mutual reinforcement, particularly given the breadth of the Commission’s current conflict-related work. Beyond the Sudan Fact-Finding Mission, the ACHPR has undertaken a promotional mission to the DRC, strengthened engagement with international human rights mechanisms, and, at its 87^th Ordinary Session, adopted further resolutions with direct implications for conflict prevention and civic space. As such, the presentation offers an opportunity to identify where joint planning, information sharing, and the complementary use of institutional tools could generate greater preventive impact.

The Session is also expected to follow up on previous decisions and assess how to move from six years of accumulated commitments to measurable action. Given the strength of the practical modalities agreed at the 866^th session, particular attention is likely to be given to their implementation, including undertaking joint field visits to conflict-affected and post-conflict countries, communicating PSC decisions with human rights implications to the ACHPR, and facilitating regular ACHPR briefings on the human rights dimensions of situations on the PSC agenda. This suggests that the key challenge is one of implementation rather than a lack of substantive agreement, making a review of the implementation matrix an opportunity to identify which commitments have been fulfilled, which remain outstanding, the constraints affecting implementation, and the responsibilities and timelines required to address these gaps. This is particularly important for early warning: the 866^th session requested that ‘the AU Commission and the ACHPR Secretariat propose a modality for the establishment of a coordinated early warning mechanism on human rights-related issues on the Continent between the two Organs’. The consultation could thus provide an opportunity to revisit these commitments and consider practical modalities for systematically feeding ACHPR-generated information into CEWS assessments, allowing human rights-related warning signals to inform preventive action before violations escalate.

The expected outcome of the session is a communiqué. The PSC and ACHPR may renew their commitment to strengthened cooperation and joint action. The communiqué may identify specific roles for NGOs, National Human Rights Institutions and other civil society actors in early warning, monitoring, mediation, protection, accountability and reconciliation, while encouraging the ACHPR to draw more systematically on its civil society networks and special mechanisms, with due attention to their own protection. The Council may welcome the strategic priorities of the ACHPR’s new Bureau and encourage closer alignment between the Strategic Plan 2026-2028 and AU peace and security priorities through coordinated work planning and information-sharing. It may further underscore the importance of mainstreaming human rights standards throughout conflict prevention, management, stabilisation, resolution and post-conflict reconstruction, including through the integration of ACHPR analysis into the CEWS. On implementation, the communiqué may call for an updated joint implementation matrix with clearly identified responsibilities, timelines and follow-up mechanisms covering outstanding commitments, regular information-sharing, ACHPR participation in relevant PSC sessions, joint field or assessment missions and early-warning cooperation. It may also encourage continued ACHPR advisory support on transitional justice and accountability, and underscore the importance of integrating women’s meaningful participation and prevention of conflict-related sexual violence into AU peace and security efforts, so that the consultation moves beyond reaffirming complementarity towards a partnership in which human rights information and tools are put to active use in early warning, prevention, protection and sustaining peace.

Tomorrow (19 August), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) is expected to convene its 1362^nd 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 1160^th 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 1290^th 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.

Tomorrow (14 August), the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) will convene its 1361^st meeting, an annual consultation with the African Governance Architecture–African Peace and Security Architecture (AGA–APSA) Platform and the Permanent Representatives Committee Sub-Committee on Human Rights, Democracy and Governance (HRDG).

Following the opening remarks by Mohamed Khaled, Permanent Representative of Algeria to the AU and PSC Chairperson for August 2026, Bankole Adeoye, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), will deliver introductory remarks. Presentations are also expected from Jevin Pillay Ponisamy of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Office to the AU, in his capacity as Vice Chairperson of the AGA-APSA Platform, on behalf of Khaled Mohamed, Chairperson of the AGA-APSA Platform, as well as from Willy Nyamitwe, Permanent Representative of Burundi to the AU and Vice Chairperson of the PRC Sub-Committee on HRDG.

The PSC last held this joint consultation at its 1295^th meeting on 8 August 2025. It requested a comprehensive matrix of AU legal frameworks on governance, human rights, peace and security, assessing whether they remain ‘fit for purpose’, together with an action plan for their review. It also reiterated the need to operationalise the African Governance Facility and integrate governance and human-rights indicators into the PSC’s early-warning systems. This consultation seeks to strengthen synergies between the AU’s governance and human-rights mechanisms and the PSC’s early-warning and preventive responsibilities.

This year’s consultation coincides with a notable institutional shift. For 2026–2028, the PSC chairs the AGA–APSA Platform at both levels: the PSC Chairperson for the month at the political level and the Head of the PSC Secretariat at the technical level. This gives the Council a more direct opportunity to steer cooperation across governance, human rights, democracy, peace and security, and to advance an ‘AU delivery as one’ approach through aligned priorities, coordinated action and stronger follow-up. The tripartite engagement also reflects the mutually reinforcing nature of these agendas and provides a practical forum for reducing institutional silos and drawing on the comparative strengths of the participating bodies.

The consultation is expected to revolve around four closely connected areas: strengthening sustained institutional cooperation among the PSC, the PRC Sub-Committee on HRDG and the AGA–APSA Platform; improving the exchange and joint analysis of information on governance, democracy, human rights, peace and security trends; identifying priorities for coordinated responses to governance-related risks; and examining governance deficits and institutional weaknesses, including gaps in accountability, inclusion, transparency and institutional effectiveness, that can contribute to conflict and instability.

In terms of institutional synergy, coordination and sustained engagement, the consultation provides an opportunity to assess how the PSC, the AGA–APSA Platform and the PRC Sub-Committee on HRDG can translate their complementary mandates into more regular and coordinated action. The September 2025 review of the High-Level Panel of Eminent African Experts on the Review of AU Governance, Peace and Security Frameworks found the AU’s governance, peace and security frameworks largely relevant, but constrained by limited political will, weak prioritisation, resource constraints and changing geopolitical dynamics, and called in particular for stronger AGA–APSA synergies, institutional coherence and implementation. Although the review focused primarily on AGA and APSA, its findings are relevant to the tripartite consultation because they underline the wider need for stronger coordination and follow-through across governance, human-rights and peace and security mechanisms. The consultation can therefore consider whether existing arrangements among the three bodies are sufficient to sustain cooperation and implementation beyond the annual engagement. An Amani Africa policy brief provides a complementary APSA-focused perspective, highlighting implementation deficits, institutional follow-through and the early warning–early action gap.

A related outstanding issue concerns cooperation measures requested in earlier PSC decisions and carried forward in 2025. These include joint promotional activities supporting ratification and domestication of AU shared-values instruments and closer PSC participation in AGA–APSA flagship initiatives. Subsequent engagement indicates progress, but does not establish whether the joint visits occurred or specific PSC responsibilities were assigned for flagship implementation and monitoring. The consultation may therefore seek reporting and a regular mechanism for sustaining PSC involvement.

A notable development was the AGA–APSA Platform’s first statutory technical meeting of 2026, convened from 9-10 February, which reviewed the Secretariat’s activities and work plan, the proposed flagship initiative, the Governance, Peace and Security Programme and revised Rules of Procedure. At the political meeting on 10 February, which included PSC and PRC Sub-Committee participation, Bankole Adeoye urged the Platform to accelerate implementation of its decisions and communiqués. He identified youth empowerment as the proposed flagship, called for implementation of the AGA–APSA Youth Engagement Strategy and, stressing the need to move from policy to action, stated: ‘We do have the strategy already, the AGA–APSA Youth Engagement Strategy; we just need to action it.’ While this indicates some follow-up, the PSC’s precise role in planning, implementation and monitoring remains unclear. The consultation may therefore seek clarity on political endorsement of the revised Rules of Procedure, allocation of responsibilities and the status of the Joint Roadmap, framework matrix, African Governance Facility and decision-tracking mechanism. Without consolidated reporting and clear follow-up, annual consultations risk repeating commitments while leaving previous assignments unresolved.

The consultation may focus on how the PSC, the AGA–APSA Platform and the PRC Sub-Committee on HRDG can make more systematic use of governance, human-rights and electoral information for early warning and preventive action. The February 2026 Assembly decision called for stronger CEWS monitoring of electoral processes and a human-rights-based approach to early warning through Preventive Action Cells, standardised indicators and support to National Human Rights Institutions and national early-warning mechanisms. This provides an important basis for establishing clearer arrangements through which information generated across the AU governance and human rights mechanisms can inform joint analysis and timely political engagement. Amani Africa’s Special Research Reports (here and here) similarly underlined the need to strengthen prevention and place greater reliance on political and diplomatic tools. The consultation could therefore consider practical arrangements for pooling analysis across the three bodies and translating it into coordinated preventive engagement in countries facing elevated governance and conflict risks.

The AU generates substantial governance and human-rights information. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) activity report illustrates the human-rights information already available within the AU and records the Commission’s June 2025 consultation with the PSC on strengthening institutional synergies, regular information exchange and a rights-based approach across the conflict cycle. The challenge is therefore less the absence of information than ensuring that relevant information reaches preventive structures early, in an accessible and actionable form, and is linked to political follow-up. Election-related risks provide an entry point. The February 2026 Assembly Decision encouraged early deployment of technical teams and Heads of Mission during the pre-election phase and stronger CEWS monitoring of electoral processes, while the ACHPR’s 2026 resolution on elections calls for adherence to relevant human-rights obligations ‘before, during and after the electoral process,’ including protections relating to political participation, freedom of expression and assembly, electoral-body independence and election-related violations. Joint pre-election risk assessments could therefore link electoral expertise with human-rights monitoring, governance analysis and preventive diplomacy, shifting attention beyond election-day observation to restrictions on political competition, institutional distrust, inflammatory mobilisation, contested constitutional changes and unimplemented recommendations.

The fifth joint PSC–APRM retreat, held in Burayu on 29 and 30 April 2026, offers a practical model. Its Joint Declaration called for regular interaction among the PSC, the African Peer Review (APR) Panel of Eminent Persons, Panel of the Wise, WiseYouth, FemWise and AGA–APSA Platform, and for ‘institutionalising data and information sharing’ so that APRM country findings feed systematically into APSA early warning and mediation planning. At its 1349^th meeting on 21 May, the PSC welcomed the APRM’s development of an early-warning system dedicated to governance and ongoing work to include it in the continental risk-and-threat matrix, while urging Member States to integrate APRM assessments into CEWS and establish national structures able to ‘translate early warnings into immediate preventive actions.’ Building on these developments, the consultation could identify practical arrangements for pooling information, conducting joint assessments and establishing clear pathways for political follow-up. The consultation could also consider how the findings and recommendations of the Africa Governance Report can secure political uptake and follow-up by Member States, particularly where governance assessments identify vulnerabilities with implications for peace and security.

Such arrangements could also strengthen coordinated responses to governance-related risks beyond elections. Joint assessment could extend to countries facing elevated risks from political transitions, constitutional disputes, emerging transnational and geopolitical risks, including external interference, institutional breakdown or severe deterioration in civic space. Bringing the PSC’s political authority, the AGA-APSA Platform’s coordination role and the Sub-Committee’s Member State engagement to enable earlier and more coherent preventive diplomacy. A similarly integrated approach could inform post-conflict reconstruction, consistent with the revised AU PCRD Policy, by linking governance, human-rights, institutional-reform and rule-of-law priorities to efforts to prevent relapse into conflict.

The youth dimension should likewise be connected more directly to governance and prevention. The AGA-APSA statutory meetings have identified youth empowerment as a flagship priority, while preparations for the Africa Governance Report 2027, under the theme ‘Youth in Governance: From Promise to Prosperity,’ provide a further opportunity to link youth participation to governance and preventive processes. The Citizens’ Engagement Strategy 2025–2030 provides a complementary framework for broadening citizen participation in AU processes. The consultation could therefore encourage country-level, time-bound implementation of the AGA–APSA Youth Engagement Strategy and stronger involvement of women, youth, civil society and marginalised communities in governance assessments and preventive initiatives.

Finally, the consultation may consider how existing AU norms and mechanisms can be used more consistently to address governance deficits and structural drivers of instability. The February 2026 Assembly decision recognised ‘governance deficits, human rights violations’ among the structural drivers of unconstitutional changes of government. The comprehensive matrix requested in 2025 could help identify outstanding ratifications, domestication and reporting gaps, overlapping mandates, implementation deficits and areas requiring normative review. The decision also placed the proposed 2028 AU Theme of the Year on human rights, democracy and governance within this broader agenda. The joint consultation can therefore provide the opportunity not only to improve information exchange, but to connect information to joint analysis, early political engagement and sustained follow-up on governance and human rights commitments.

The outcome of the session is expected to be a Communiqué. The PSC may reaffirm the importance of strengthening the linkages between governance, human rights, democracy, peace and security, while supporting the continued institutionalisation and strengthening of its annual engagement with the AGA–APSA Platform and the PRC Sub-Committee on HRDG. It may call for deeper collaboration beyond the annual consultation through concrete joint actions that strengthen conflict prevention, democratic governance and sustainable peace, consistent with a stronger ‘One AU Approach’. The Council may also encourage more systematic information-sharing and joint analysis of governance, democracy, human rights, peace and security trends, and agree on priority recommendations and coordinated responses to emerging governance challenges and risks. The PSC may reiterate the call on Member States that have not yet done so to ratify the ACDEG and other AU Shared Values instruments, while urging States Parties to strengthen implementation and meet applicable reporting obligations. It may also encourage mobilisation of political, institutional, technical and financial support for preparations related to the proposed 2028 AU Theme of the Year and associated flagship initiatives, including support from AU organs and institutions, Member States, RECs/RMs and partners, as well as measures to strengthen the institutional and operational capacity of the AGA–APSA Secretariat.