Issue No: 07/2025

Conflict & Resilience Monitor – 27 August 2025

The Conflict and Resilience Monitor offers monthly blog-size commentary and analysis on the latest conflict-related trends in Africa.

Photo Credit: Dan Mason

This month we begin with an article about the challenges that national peace architectures face in the current peace and security landscape in Africa. The article, written by Chika Charles Aniekwe and Ozonnia Ojielo, discusses the challenges that these architectures face due to violent non-state actors (VNSAs). VNSAs operate across borders, which is a challenge for national peace architectures, as they are limited by their national borders. This requires states and architectures to better co-ordinate their activities in border areas.

We also featuring articles on two of Africa’s most important peace and security forums, namely the Tana Forum on Security in Africa and the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development. These forums bring together the African peace and security expert and policy communities to take stock of Africa’s peace and security challenges, brainstorm solutions and discussing Africa’s place and role in the global peace and security architecture.

Hesphina Rukato writes the first of these articles about the Tana Forum on Security in Africa. The article discusses the 10 years of the Tana Forum and its various recommendations in a number of areas relating to peace and security in Africa, including on managing fragile states, organised crime, natural resource governance and economic integration amongst others.

Seba Issa then discusses the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development, which is set to host its fifth edition in October. The Aswan Forum bridges policy and practice gaps across the peace-security-development nexus in Africa, while also highlighting African perspectives on global priorities, frameworks and strategies, with the intention of positioning Africa as a contributor to the global peace and development agenda.

Concluding this edition of the monitor is an article written by Katharine Bebington about the upcoming elections in Malawi. She discusses some of the issues and challenges that have since emerged including instances of politically motivated violence, ahead of these polls.

Cedric de Coning

Dr. Cedric de Coning

Chief Editor: Conflict & Resilience Monitor​
Katharine-Bebington

Katharine Bebington

Assistant Editor: Conflict & Resilience Monitor​
Photo Credit: EyeEm
Cross-border / Inter-State tensions, Peace and Security

Are National Peace Architectures Still Fit for Purpose? Rethinking Infrastructures for Peace in a Transboundary Era

  • Dr. Chika Charles Aniekwe
  • Dr. Ozonnia Ojielo

Africa’s conflict landscape has undergone significant changes over the past decade, shifting from primarily intra-state, politically mediated disputes to regional crises driven by violent non-state actors (VNSAs), illicit cross-border economies, climate-related migration, and digital mobilisation. For scholars and practitioners of peace who have followed the development of policies and frameworks for addressing conflict in Africa over the last one or two decades, a key policy question now arises: are national peace architectures (NPAs), typically centred on peace councils, local peace committees, and insider mediation, still fit for purpose?

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Photo Credit: Paul Kagame
Peace and Security

A Case for Rebooting the Tana Forum on Security in Africa

  • Dr. Hesphina Rukato

The Tana Forum on Security in Africa was launched in 2012 in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, with the former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo serving as its first Chairperson until the current Chairperson, President of Ghana John Dramani Mahama, took over the role in 2018. The handover has rightly been called “a demonstration of how governance begins within our institutions.”

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Photo Credit: Vyacheslav Argenberg
Peace and Security

Aswan Forum: Africa’s Leading Platform for Sustainable Peace and Development

  • Seba Issa

The Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development was launched in 2019 during Egypt’s Chairmanship of the African Union (AU) and under the auspices of H.E. Abdelfattah El-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, and Champion of Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development (PCRD) in Africa. The forum serves as a uniquely African-owned and African-led high-level platform for promoting home-grown solutions to peace, security and development challenges.

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Department of State and U.S. Institute of Peace
Elections

Malawi’s Upcoming Elections

  • Katharine Bebington

In 2024, several Southern Africa countries held elections.  In both South Africa and Botswana, the political landscape shifted dramatically, as the African National Congress (ANC) and the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) saw their decades-long dominance come to an end. In Namibia, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) also experienced a decline in popularity, retaining power with its smallest majority since independence in 1990, while in Mozambique, the contested election results that kept FRELIMO in power, led to widespread unrest across the country.

 

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