Strategic Autonomy Or Stagnation PAAI Report Demands Radical Reforms For African Union
The report launched by the Pan-African Agenda Institute (PAAI), a think tank that focuses on enabling the continent to realize a dynamic, peaceful, prosperous and integrated future states with many conflicts in the African continent yet to be solved and even expanding, the AU needs deep reforms to overcome the political and security challenges.
The report launched in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi stated that the AU which was designed for a post cold war unipolar world order is struggling to deal with conflicts in the continent at a time of dangerous global uncertainty.
The PAAI report calls for transformation of the AU, reimagining the African state, prioritizing domestic constituencies and deploying a pragmatic and dynamic collective Pan-African voice over rigid ideology, static positions and fragmented approach to conflict resolution.
The PAAI report in particular mentioned the ongoing Sudan conflict and the 2020-2022 war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region as examples of devastating conflicts which were underreported globally and which might have at least been mitigated or even avoided.
The African continent is currently grappling with various conflicts across the continent that have killed hundreds of thousands of people including in Ethiopia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sahel countries.
The PAAI report release comes in the same week as African leaders and global dignitaries start gathering for the 39th edition of the AU Summit that will be held from Wednesday, February 11,2026 to Sunday, February 15,2026 in the organization’s host capital, Addis Ababa.
“Africa can’t solely rely on global multilateral systems, which are themselves being challenged by limited financial capacities, while the continent has to also simultaneously deal with diminishing external financial aid and shrinking multilateral support,” the think thank stated.
The Pan-African think tank instead called on African leaders and institutions to see the current challenging period as an opportunity to pursue self-reliance and strategic autonomy through local constituency building, action-oriented Pan-African common positions as well as through building of pragmatic and dynamic global partnerships.
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