Why Have the AU, IGAD, and Regional Organisations Failed to Achieve Peace in Sudan?

Sudanhorizon – Mohamed Osman Adam

A South African centre for security studies has indicated that the African Union (AU) has failed to achieve peace in several African countries, including the current situation in Sudan. The reasons cited include a pervasive sense of futility, the failure to implement previous peace agreements in many African conflicts, and the failure to unify the efforts of Africa’s major states. The continental body—much like the United Nations—has focused on structural reforms at a time when it should have prioritised what it termed the “positions and synergy of pivotal regional states”.
In this context, Ndubisi Christian Ani, Lead Researcher and Head of the African Peace and Security Governance Project at the Institute for Security Studies, wrote an article on the institute’s website entitled “A Decade after African Union Reform, Collective African Security Remains Elusive”. He lamented that the very leaders who constantly invoke the importance of “African solutions” often resort to external mediation in conflicts and treat African initiatives as optional or secondary.
He argued that AU interventions in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South Sudan, Mozambique, and the Sahel remain marginal, as external powers have reasserted dominance over Africa’s security landscape. He also posed a critical question about the role the AU should have played—but failed to—for a variety of reasons.
The author noted that a senior AU official told ISS Today that the problem does not lie in organisational structure, but rather in the “insufficient support of member states for African initiatives”. The official also expressed regret that “the same leaders who constantly cite ‘African solutions to African problems’ undermine regional initiatives and seek external mediation in conflicts, viewing Africa-led interventions as optional or secondary”. This, he added, diminishes the AU’s influence despite its strong institutional presence: “Weak cohesion undermines the AU’s conflict-prevention efforts and opens the door to external intervention.” In its first decade, the AU led mediation and peace-support operations with backing from member states.
By the time the reform process began in 2016, however, the continental body’s role in major crises had already started to decline. The United Nations assumed responsibility for missions in Mali and the Central African Republic in 2013 and 2014, respectively. In 2016, the AU Peace and Security Council reversed a decision to deploy peacekeepers to Burundi, inadvertently creating a risk-averse mindset among council members toward approving future missions. The joint AU–UN mission in Darfur was closed in 2020, leaving Somalia as the only country with an active—albeit limited—mission.
At the same time, peace-support operations across the continent became increasingly donor-dependent. Between 2013 and 2023, regional economic communities led many major initiatives, particularly peace-support operations, preferring to address their own challenges rather than wait for consensus at the AU level. This was evident in the Lake Chad Basin, The Gambia, Lesotho, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and the DRC. Because these groupings rarely coordinated with one another, such ad hoc coalitions undermined collective African efforts.
Divisions deepened over the extent to which regions should independently lead peace initiatives, given the AU’s central role in Africa’s peace and security architecture. Tensions—such as those that arose between the AU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Mali—prompted efforts to clarify the division of labour between the AU and regional economic communities as part of the reform process.
This lack of cohesion has weakened both AU and regional efforts to address conflicts, opening the door to external intervention. Eastern DRC clearly illustrates the risks of weak coordination. When the March 23 Movement (M23) resurfaced in 2021, various AU institutions intervened with limited coordination, as the DRC—like many African states—belongs to multiple regional economic communities. The East African Community deployed a military force during 2022–2023, followed by a mission from the Southern African Development Community during 2023–2025. Both withdrew without achieving tangible security gains or cooperation.
The author posed a pertinent question: Is the AU seeking to bolster its standing through politics of influence rather than through its capacity to exert real leverage over the warring parties?
In June 2023, the AU convened meetings involving the East African Community, the Southern African Development Community, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, and the United Nations under an AU-led roadmap. During the same period, however, Qatar and the United States brokered temporary agreements with the conflict parties.
The author commented that these agreements clearly demonstrate that influence over the warring parties matters more than the formal mandate to mediate. Recent dynamics suggest a departure from earlier episodes in which the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region—an African regional mechanism under the African Peace and Security framework—played a role in resolving conflicts. At a meeting held in Togo in January 2026, participants agreed on a unified mediation framework for eastern DRC under AU leadership. While this is a positive step, it continues the AU’s pattern of coordinating the growing number of regional and international mediators, even as its ability to influence the situation on the ground remains limited.
The leverage over the warring parties remains weak.
Similarly, in Sudan, the AU is leading efforts to coordinate the work of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the United Nations, the League of Arab States, the European Union, and others. Although the AU High-Level Panel on Sudan sought to achieve sustainable peace through a political framework, the US–Saudi mediation process in 2023 resulted only in a temporary ceasefire.
The AU’s coordinating role is critically important, as it ensures that mediation aligns with African frameworks and objectives. Yet there is a perception that the AU is attempting to enhance its standing through geography and local politics rather than through its ability to influence the conflict parties. This perception is reinforced by the limited political backing that member states provide to the AU and regional economic community mediation, undermining their credibility and negotiating power.
Any AU-led solution requires member states to recognise the practical value of collective action. Warring parties and coup-affected states—such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—are acutely aware of the AU’s declining influence, resulting from years of unimplemented decisions and reluctance to impose sanctions.
Rather than focusing on protracted institutional reforms, the AU should prioritise persuading member states to invest their diplomatic, economic, and military resources in AU-led initiatives. The real question is: how can this be achieved?
Brieal Singh, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, argues: “The African Union can secure greater support from member states by focusing on pivotal regional states. Even if the AU were to obtain backing from many African countries to operationalise the African Peace and Security Architecture, this would be futile if major states are pulling in different directions.”

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