Adapting the African Union for a changing world

In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy redefined civic responsibility by urging a nation to look beyond itself. More than six decades later, Africa faces a parallel reckoning: A continent of 1.4 billion people must confront the question of whether its premier political body, the African Union, can evolve from a symbol of post-colonial unity into a decisive force amid compounding, present-day crises.
The continental union was founded in 2002 to heal divisions and propel collective progress. Yet two decades later, its foundational aspirations have collided with sobering realities. Conflicts once confined by national borders have metastasized into transnational networks of insurgencies, mercenary forces, and military regimes.
Though quick to invoke the principle of pan-African solidarity, member states often retreat into sovereignty-first postures, underfunding of initiatives, and dilution of accountability. Meanwhile, the world’s powers, old and new, increasingly treat Africa as a transactional space, reviving colonial-era extractions in the guise of partnerships.
This is not merely a test of institutional effectiveness, it is a question of survival. The African Union’s ability to mediate crises, from the disintegration of Sudan to the Sahel’s extremist spiral, is hamstrung by reliance on external funding and inconsistent political will.
Donor nations, preoccupied with unrest and far-right angst at home, alongside strategic rivalries, are scaling back long-term overseas engagements, leaving gaps for opportunistic actors to exploit. Even the admission of the African Union to the G20 in 2023, a symbolic victory, risks becoming a hollow gesture if internal fissures prevent coherent negotiations on key priorities such as climate finance, debt relief, and free trade.
The stakes are amplified by Africa’s demographic and economic trajectories. By 2050, one in four of the global population will be African. In addition, the continent holds nearly a third of the world’s mineral reserves, which are vital for efforts to accelerate energy transitions and power the green economies of tomorrow.
Yet these advantages are tempered by vulnerabilities: 23 African nations are in debt distress, while conflict and climate-driven displacement are increasing. The mandate of the African Union, to secure stability, integration and agency, has never been more urgent. But, its current structure, still reflective of 20th-century multilateralism, is misaligned with 21st century “polyplurality.” It must make the transition from issuing open-ended resolutions to orchestrating robust action: from depending on donor funding to mobilizing the continent’s vast resources.
Top of the agenda is continental security and conflict proliferation. Recently, security challenges in Africa have undergone a silent revolution. Gone are the days of conventional armies clashing over obscure territorial claims. Now, non-state actors — violent factions in the Sahel, militia networks in the Horn of Africa, and resource-driven insurgencies in the Congo Basin — wage asymmetrical wars that defy borders and traditional military doctrine or security dynamics.
However, the African Union’s continued reliance on peacekeeping missions designed for interstate conflicts falters in response to such fluid threats. In the Sahel, for instance, well-intentioned regional initiatives have struggled with chronic underfunding and operational delays, allowing groups linked to Daesh and Al-Qaeda to entrench their control of smuggling routes and rural territories across vast ungoverned spaces.
Moreover, the African Standby Force, envisioned as a continent-wide, rapid-reaction corps, remains more theoretical than functional, crippled by disjointed command structures and uneven contributions from member states.

The African Union’s ability to mediate crises is hamstrung by reliance on external funding and inconsistent political will.

Hafed Al-Ghwell

Such institutional inertia is compounded by political equivocation. The African Union’s principle of “nonindifference” to conflicts clashes with the reluctance of member states to cede sovereignty or risk entanglement in neighbors’ crises. After the 2021 coup in Sudan, the country’s membership was suspended but the union stopped short of imposing sanctions or deploying mediators, fearing further destabilization. Similar hesitancy marked responses to coups in Mali and Burkina Faso, where deadlines for democratic transitions were extended despite minimal progress.
This pattern of symbolic condemnation without enforceable consequences erodes the credibility of the bloc. It also creates perverse incentives: Leaders facing internal unrest might prioritize regime survival over regional or continental obligations, in the knowledge that any response by the African Union would likely be measured, if there is one at all.
Meanwhile, external actors exploit this disunity. Russia-backed Africa Corps mercenaries, for instance, now fill security voids in Mali and the Central African Republic, trading “coup-proofing” military support for unchecked access to resources, thereby weakening the influence of the African Union and prolonging instability.
Secondly, as the bloc moves to tackle the continent’s challenges and assert its voice on the world stage, critical internal flaws remain. Ironically, its greatest strength, its embodiment of continental unity, is also its most glaring weakness. Member states champion pan-Africanism in speeches but routinely sidestep their obligations, with only one in three fulfilling their financial commitments. This chronic underfunding forces the union to depend on external partners for more than half of its budget, which distorts priorities and overshadows homegrown agendas such as industrialization or infrastructure development.
The contradictions deepen when leaders manipulate the principles of the bloc to serve personal or political ends. The policy of noninterference, designed to ensure mutual respect for sovereignty, shields regimes accused of election-rigging or human rights abuses, for example.
Conversely, collective security frameworks are selectively invoked — as in the case of counterterrorism efforts in Mozambique — but ignored when crises demand shared sacrifice. This duality breeds cynicism; the African Union condemns coups yet tolerates leaders who hollow out democracies through legalized repression.
Without financial autonomy and consistent enforcement of its own charters, the bloc risks becoming a stage for performative solidarity, on which resolutions are a substitute for action and external actors fill the voids with self-interested designs.
Thirdly, the strategic importance of Africa has surged in an era of fractured geopolitics, yet the treatment it receives from external powers remains rooted in a transactional calculus. Foreign-backed mercenaries offer security assistance to fragile states in exchange for mineral concessions, deepening economic and military dependencies.
A backlash over unsustainable loans has shifted the discourse on avoiding Africa’s looming debt crisis toward the restructuring of deals that will still prioritize resource access over local industrialization. Meanwhile, donor countries are gradually scaling back direct aid and increasingly tying support to aggressive migration control, a pivot that sidelines long-term development goals.
On the bright side, the admission of the bloc to the G20 is recognition of Africa’s growing demographic and economic weight. However, it also puts pressure on the union to transcend internal divisions and shepherd member states toward pursuit of shared interests. Otherwise, disputes over key priorities will only cripple its negotiating power.
The bloc’s potential is also evident in initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area, which could fundamentally reshape intra-African commerce. Yet such advances remain incremental, hampered by bureaucratic inertia and administrative stewardship without transformative vision.
John F. Kennedy’s call for interdependence rings differently today. The challenges Africa faces — climate migration, resource exploitation, conflict — are global in cause and effect. If the African Union is to survive, it will demand a serious confrontation of its contradictions: the enforcement of democratic norms while respecting sovereignty; reducing the reliance on donors while accelerating integration; and addressing hybrid threats with agility rather than outdated playbooks.
The moment is here. The question is whether the bloc will seize it or be seized by it.

• Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. X: @HafedAlGhwell