The African Peace and Security Architecture: An African Response to Regional Peace and Security Challenges

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Africa has been the most unstable region of the world, especially its sub-Saharan part, which was the privileged theater of various armed conflicts and political crisis. In 2002, the African Union (AU) has launched a new institutional framework, the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), to deal with conflict dynamics, to tackle security challenges and to promote peace and sustainable development on the continent. In this chapter, the authors analyze APSA’s sixteen years of involvement in maintaining, building and making peace in the region by addressing these questions: How major regional players, such as the AU and Regional Economic Communities, promote peace and security in the framework of APSA? What are key institutional challenges? Does APSA provide a real “African response” to regional challenges?