By Adekeye Adebajo

The African Union (AU) released a report on reforms in February 2026 in the name of Kenyan president, William Ruto, the “Champion of AU Institutional Reforms,” which the pan-continental body is currently attempting to implement. The document dealt largely with issues of peace and security. However, like the recent United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s July 2026 report on Reforming UN Peace Operations, the AU document sought to apply bureaucratic solutions to inherently political problems.

The Ruto report was disappointingly short of concrete, practical ideas. Its language and high-sounding, empty declarations, and its resort to creating committees of experts, recalled the dog days of the enfeebled Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The AU document pushed forcefully for the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and its African Governance Architecture (AGA) to be more closely aligned, blaming delays in achieving this goal on the limited implementation of AU legal and policy frameworks that suggested a lack of political will among its member states.

The astonishingly vacuous solutions to these deep-seated problems involved proposals to “renew member states’ adherence to AU instruments and principles; reinvigorate African unity…. And reaffirm collective ownership of the AU agenda.” The document further called for “joint assessments, integrated responses and harmonised standards” to achieve “the whole-of-society influence” required to manage African conflicts more effectively. It also proposed focusing interventions on human security, without clearly defining the concept or providing any concrete suggestions of how to achieve its goals.

The Ruto report further called for strengthening weak institutions such as the toothless African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), and the Pan-African Parliament’s (PAP) “talking shop.” It quixotically advocated setting up a five-person independent panel to “harmonise” an AGA-APSA implementation plan, while another five-member panel of experts was proposed to draft an African Foreign Policy Framework. The document also called for a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the AU and African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to take decisions on using the African Standby Force (ASF). This pan-continental force of five subregional brigades which should have been established by 2015, remains far from operational.

Ruto’s report further proposed better coordination between the AU Commission, the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA), the Continental Early Warning System, Africa’s RECs, civil society bodies, and AU organs.

The document also suggested that the AU Commission “institutionalise compliance and accountability mechanisms;” draft an AU Early Action guideline; update the AU Master Roadmap of Practical Steps to Silencing the Guns; accelerate “the ratification and domestication of normative frameworks;” ensure “political commitment and active engagement of all Member States in promoting good governance;” encourage the AU Chair to “continue to deploy his Good Offices;” and establish “an effective structure to support the [AU] Panel of the Wise.”

Many of these suggestions focused on improving bureaucratic coordination, and were reminiscent of the alchemic 2017 report on AU reforms coordinated by Rwandan leader, Paul Kagame. Such suggestions can clearly not be a substitute for the slow, steady hard work of building five effective sub-regional economic and security pillars that can help promote genuine regional integration, advance beneficiation, and accelerate industrialisation to stem Africa’s conflicts.

If these region-building efforts succeed, they could also help to provide the large financial outlays required for conflict management in an era of much diminished international funding. The Ruto report’s suggestion of increasing the AU Peace Fund from $400 million (with $414 million already raised) to $1 billion is sensible, though it remains unclear which countries – with their own huge debt burdens and domestic challenges – would provide such massive resources. Only 24% of the AU’s programme budget is currently funded by its member states, with the bulk of security funding provided by external donors.

A detailed response to the AU report was provided by the Addis Ababa-based think tank, Amani Africa, in August 2026. It praised the Ruto report for focusing on strengthening implementation, rather than proposing new normative or institutional frameworks. The Amani Africa report also noted that the APSA/AGA gap occurred as a result of the overreliance of the 15-member AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) on the AU Peace and Security Department (PSD) to provide it with information, with the result that the much smaller AU Political Affairs Department (PAD) was marginalised. Both departments were subsequently merged under the 2017 Kagame reforms.

Amani Africa further sensibly proposed a greater focus on operational rather than institutional integration of APSA and AGA, with regular reporting to the PSC on long-term governance trends. The report finally noted that the AU security architecture had been built on two flawed assumptions: that Africa would be able to fund its own security, and that the UN would provide it with consistent support. Neither assumption has turned out to be accurate.

In the current disintegrating geopolitical order, security and socio-economic development will clearly be much more difficult to pursue. However, Africans must persevere in efforts to consolidate peace across their fragile continent in the continued quest for what Kenyan scholar. Ali Mazrui, described as Pax Africana.

Professor Adebajo is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship in South Africa.