In his election campaigns for the African Union’s (AU) top job, new AU Commission Chairperson Mahamoud Youssouf said he would advocate for significant reforms to AU crisis responses. These reforms would include a more proactive Peace and Security Council and effective standby forces ready for deployment to conflict areas.
From Sudan and South Sudan to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Africa’s peace and security landscape has become increasingly volatile. Persistent conflicts have exposed the limitations of global and regional approaches such as peace support operations.
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Mr Youssouf’s leadership began amid major global and regional discussions in the United Nations (UN) and AU on reforming peacekeeping globally and in Africa. These debates have prompted both organisations to review their respective frameworks. This convergence offers the AU’s new leadership an opportunity to forge a bold African vision for peace operations that helps address structural and systemic drivers of conflict.
Current approaches in Africa are often criticised for failing to address the root causes of crises, notably deficits in governance, socioeconomic development and diversity management. They also struggle to foster timely preventive diplomacy that achieves political solutions.
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In recent years, several peace operations on the continent have ended prematurely. These include the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, East African Community Regional Force in eastern DRC, Southern African Development Community (SADC) Mission in Mozambique, and the dissolution of the G5 Sahel Joint Force. In March, the SADC Mission in the DRC ended its operation after 15 months due to deep-seated political problems and military capacity limitations.
These missions differed in their deployment contexts, mandates and the nature of the challenges encountered, including the varying effects of regional and global geopolitics. But all were forced to close before achieving their goals. This signified a broader crisis of confidence in multilateral peacekeeping and peace support operations.
Local communities and host nations claimed that these missions failed to effectively carry out their mandates, including protecting civilians and fostering conditions for an inclusive peace process. This led to a decline in public and state trust.
The reasons behind the missions’ untimely departure include strategic, political and operational challenges. They also lacked political consensus on the UN Security Council and suffered from dwindling host-nation cooperation and limited regional support for UN peacekeeping missions.
As a result, discussions on the review of peace operations in the UN context, including peacekeeping and special political missions, have gathered pace. The UN’s 2023 New Agenda for Peace and the 2024 Pact for the Future requested UN Secretary-General António Guterres to ‘undertake a reflection on the limits and future of peacekeeping in light of the evolving nature of conflict.’
The UN Secretariat has started the review process, which aims to draw lessons from previous and ongoing missions and recommend how the UN toolbox can be adapted to meet existing and future security challenges.
Likewise, the AU has started a review of the African Standby Force (ASF), which was declared fully operational in 2016. The force is a key mechanism for rapidly deploying peace support operations and responding to crises across the continent.
Opinions vary about the use of the ASF. Some argue that the AU and its regional economic communities used the ASF as a strategic framework to build the capacity of peace support operations. They also claim that the peace missions authorised by the Economic Community of West African States for The Gambia and by SADC for Lesotho and Mozambique were deployed under the ASF framework. These deployments did not, however, follow the authorisation processes enshrined in the ASF concept.
Others contend that the ASF has yet to be fully utilised due to a lack of political consensus, weak institutional coordination between the AU and regional actors, and funding challenges.
The AU Commission initiated the ASF review in 2023 amid rising security threats and urgent questions about the force’s relevance and effectiveness. Among other activities, a review workshop was held in December 2024. In February 2025, the AU Assembly directed the AU Commission to expedite the review and align it with Africa’s evolving security challenges. A roadmap for ASF reform is being developed and a detailed report is expected in mid-2025.
As Youssouf begins his tenure, he can draw on the ongoing UN and AU reviews to steer a renewed vision for peace operations in Africa. The ultimate goal should be an approach that promotes political, not just security, solutions to crises.
The continent’s diverse and complex conflict landscape requires a range of deployment options by the UN, AU and regional actors. Ensuring alignment between the AU and UN reviews will make good use of both organisations’ comparative advantages, considering their overlapping aspirations and the goals of the two processes.
To ensure that Africa’s position is included in the UN peace operation review, the new AU leaders should craft a common African position that reflects the continent’s concerns, priorities and experiences. They could work with the PSC to organise a dedicated session to deliberate and build consensus around Africa’s input to the UN review process.
The AU Commission chairperson must also seize his early momentum to speed up the ASF review process as a key mechanism for deploying peace operations in response to conflicts across Africa. The review should clarify the roles of the AU and regional bodies in authorising deployments, streamlining political decision-making processes, and identifying sustainable resources.
Ibrahim Barrie, Dawit Yohannes, Emmaculate Liaga, Tsion Belay and Meressa Kahsu, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Addis Ababa
(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).
