Political, Economic, and Security Challenges in Africa: the African Union Summit

Matías Mongan, journalist and collaborator of the Gate Center.

Under the theme “Ensuring Sustainable Access to Water and Safe Sanitation Systems,” the 39th Summit of the African Union (AU) was held on February 14–15 in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. During the meeting, the President of Burundi, Évariste Ndayishimiye, assumed the rotating presidency for 2026. Special guests included the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni; the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres; the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit; and the President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas.

The AU and Economic Challenges

The African Union arrived at its annual assembly aware of the need to deepen the African integration process, especially amid a chaotic international context marked by intensifying competition among major powers for spheres of influence. This scenario threatens to reduce African countries’ room for international maneuver and to restrict the flow of foreign investment needed to promote the development policies outlined in the AU’s Agenda 2063.

One indicator of this challenge is that intra-African trade currently accounts for only 15% of the continent’s total exports—a figure similar to that of Latin America—and consists mainly of manufactured goods and services. Greater interregional trade is constrained by a similar export structure of low value-added products and by an annual investment deficit of $100 billion, which “prevents most African small and medium-sized enterprises from participating in regional value chains” (Afreximbank, 2025:12).

In his opening speech, summarizing the achievements of Angola’s rotating presidency, President João Lourenço highlighted the Third Infrastructure Financing Summit held in October 2025 and the U.S.–Africa Business Forum last June. The meeting generated investment commitments in Africa worth $2.5 billion (U.S. Department of State, 2025), to be directed toward sectors such as healthcare, electricity infrastructure, and tourism, among others.

Lourenço also noted that the first Global Investment Summit in Africa will be held in Angola at the end of 2026. In the same vein, the President of the African Development Bank, Sidi Ould Tah, announced the New African Financial Architecture (NAFA), aimed at strengthening financial sovereignty and addressing the persistent development financing gap (AfDB, 2026). Although the growing agency of African countries can be seen as positive, the challenge will be to avoid overlapping forums and a dispersion of investment flows so that they effectively benefit the continent’s economies.

Beyond securing financing to develop domestic industries, African nations also face high levels of debt that limit states’ capacity to implement development policies. According to statistics from the African Development Bank, in 2024 countries in the region paid a total of $163 billion in debt service costs—nearly three times the $61 billion paid in 2010 (AfDB, 2024).

In response, the AU has managed to construct a relatively cohesive diplomatic discourse emphasizing issues such as reforming the international financial system and reducing debt costs. However, divergences persist that limit its negotiating capacity. An example was the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting held on April 28–29, 2025, when Egypt and Ethiopia refused to support South Africa’s candidacy for the Security Council, preventing a joint declaration (Mongan, 2025). If African nations seek to expand their autonomy, a minimum level of understanding among the main states is essential, as the continent’s international leverage is greater when acting as a bloc rather than individually.

The Risk of Legitimizing Coups d’État

A political challenge for the AU is preventing the resurgence of coups d’état, which have intensified across the continent in recent years. The issue featured prominently at the Summit, with the President of Angola proposing an extraordinary session to analyze responses to threats to peace and security.

Since 2020, 11 military uprisings have been recorded in nine African countries, with Mali and Burkina Faso leading the list with two coups each. After seizing power, military leaders often govern during a transitional period before organizing elections in which they win by wide margins.

This occurred, for example, in Gabon, where junta leader Brice Oligui Nguema won 90% of the vote in the April 13, 2025 presidential election, becoming head of state after overthrowing Ali Bongo Ondimba in August 2023 (whose family had ruled the country since 1967). Gabon was suspended from the AU at the time, but the sanction was lifted following Nguema’s victory. A similar dynamic occurred in Guinea, which was suspended in September 2021 after the coup that ousted President Alpha Condé. Its membership was restored in January 2026 after the decisive electoral victory of Mamady Doumbouya, who had led the military takeover.

Currently, eight countries remain suspended from the African Union due to unconstitutional changes of government. In his speech, João Lourenço urged rejection of this new path to power, arguing that it indirectly encourages coups: “This is a way of whitewashing an act devoid of legitimacy, which unfortunately is beginning to be considered normal and therefore acceptable, when in fact it threatens the foundations of our principles and the peace and security of the continent.”

Beyond the arguments used to justify coups in a continent where corruption appears endemic, this dynamic undermines the potential of the integration process and distances the AU from the difficult goal of “Silencing the Guns in Africa,” one of the flagship programs of Agenda 2063. This platform promotes integration policies in the economic, educational, industrial, migratory, and digital spheres, as well as in infrastructure—most notably the ambitious project to build an integrated high-speed rail network connecting African capitals to facilitate the movement of goods, services, and people.

As a fundamental part of the Global South, African countries have gradually increased their international agency and brought their demands to international organizations in an effort to influence decision-making processes. However, as seen in the BRICS case, disagreements among African powers undermine the effectiveness of this “institutionalist” foreign policy.

Therefore, the African integration process faces a range of challenges—particularly in the democratic sphere, but also in economic and security matters (with terrorism remaining a major concern across the continent). The African Union should address these obstacles to economic integration within the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

To achieve this objective, African countries will need to find a reliable external partner to help provide the necessary infrastructure—especially in the security domain, where they often lack sufficient capabilities. Historically, the European Union and the United States have played this role. However, the administration of Donald Trump has recently urged countries in the region to bear the costs of their own security, following a “burden-sharing” logic (Mahachi, Fröhlich, and Kaledzi, 2025). This political shift by the United States threatens to deepen Africa’s security challenges.