Africa’s security governance is entering a new and uncertain phase. For decades, the management of conflicts on the continent relied heavily on external actors — the United Nations, Western-funded peacekeeping missions, and bilateral military partnerships. African institutions often played supporting roles, providing political legitimacy while operational leadership remained largely external.
That arrangement is now breaking down.
Over the past three years, the global architecture that sustained peacekeeping in Africa has begun to retreat. The United States has dramatically reduced funding for international peacekeeping operations. European security spending has shifted toward Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, the United Nations has begun downsizing missions as unpaid dues and geopolitical divisions weaken its ability to sustain large deployments.
The result is a growing vacuum in conflict management across Africa.
Into this vacuum steps the African Union Peace and Security Council (AU PSC) — an institution long intended to anchor Africa’s own security governance. The central question is no longer whether Africa should lead its own security affairs. The question is whether the AU PSC can realistically do so on its own.
The Council certainly has the mandate. Established in 2004 as the backbone of the African Peace and Security Architecture, the PSC was designed to prevent conflicts, coordinate peacekeeping missions and support post-conflict reconstruction across the continent. Unlike the UN Security Council, it operates without permanent members or veto powers, reflecting Africa’s historic suspicion of entrenched power hierarchies.
Yet this design has produced a Council that is politically representative but often vulnerable to shifting national interests.
Recent PSC elections demonstrate how institutional influence has become intertwined with regional competition. In North Africa, rivalry between Algeria and Morocco prevented agreement on representation, leaving the region’s seat vacant for months. In East Africa, election outcomes reflected broader tensions surrounding the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
These dynamics reveal a persistent challenge: African states frequently view PSC membership as a tool for protecting national interests rather than as a mechanism for enforcing collective security.
The Council’s diplomatic visibility has nonetheless increased. When war erupted in Sudan in 2023, the PSC asserted that the conflict should be resolved through a Sudanese-led, AU-facilitated process, signalling a shift away from reliance on externally driven mediation frameworks.
However, Sudan also illustrates the limits of the Council’s authority.
Despite strong communiqués and repeated calls for civilian protection and humanitarian access, the war continues to devastate the country. Regional powers have pursued their own strategies, external actors continue to supply weapons, and the PSC lacks the enforcement tools necessary to compel compliance.
A similar pattern is visible in eastern Congo. The Council has repeatedly condemned the M23 rebellion and warned against external support to the group. Yet violence has escalated and the rebels have captured key urban centres, including Goma.
Statements alone cannot stop wars.
Somalia offers perhaps the clearest example of both progress and vulnerability in Africa’s evolving security architecture. In 2025, the African Union replaced the UN-supported ATMIS mission with the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) — the first AU peace operation designed to operate without a UN command structure.
Symbolically, the transition marked an important milestone for African security sovereignty.
Financially, however, it exposed the fragility of that sovereignty. Within months the mission faced severe funding shortages. Troop-contributing countries were owed millions in unpaid allowances and the mission’s operating budget remained largely unfunded. Without reliable financing, even the most ambitious security architecture risks collapsing under its own weight.
These cases highlight three structural constraints facing the AU PSC.
First, political competition among member states often undermines collective action. Countries directly involved in conflicts frequently lobby for PSC seats in order to shape the Council’s language and limit criticism of their actions.
Second, chronic financing gaps severely restrict operational capacity. The AU’s Peace Fund — intended to provide predictable financing through a 0.2 percent import levy — has been implemented by fewer than half of AU member states.
Third, inconsistent enforcement of continental norms weakens the Council’s credibility. While coups in some countries have triggered strong sanctions, powerful states have often avoided meaningful consequences when violating AU principles.
The result is a troubling perception that continental rules apply unevenly.
Yet despite these challenges, the AU PSC operates in a moment of genuine opportunity. External actors are retreating from African peacekeeping not because conflicts have disappeared, but because global priorities have shifted. As geopolitical competition intensifies elsewhere, African states increasingly find themselves responsible for managing their own crises.
This reality gives the PSC a level of relevance it has never previously enjoyed.
The transition from UN-dominated peacekeeping to African-led operations reflects both necessity and ambition. Many African governments now recognise that sustainable security solutions must be rooted in continental institutions rather than external frameworks.
But sovereignty requires more than rhetoric.
For the PSC to function as the true custodian of Africa’s security governance, member states must demonstrate a willingness to finance operations, enforce common norms and accept collective decisions even when they conflict with narrow national interests.
So far, that commitment remains uneven.
The African Union Peace and Security Council can anchor Africa’s security governance, but it cannot yet do so fully independently. Its mandates are strong, its legitimacy is growing and the global environment increasingly favours African leadership.
Yet institutional authority means little without political discipline and financial commitment.
If African states are prepared to invest in their own security architecture and uphold the principles they collectively proclaim, the PSC could evolve into a powerful instrument of continental stability.
If they are not, Africa risks inheriting responsibility for its security without the unity or resources required to sustain it.
The coming years will reveal which path the continent chooses.