The member states of the African Union established the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) in 2002 as a long-term structural response to the peace and security challenges on the African continent. Through the APSA, the African Union and mandated sub-regional organisations have access to tools which help them to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts. We examined the EU's support for the development of the APSA, concluding that the support has had a poor effect and needed refocusing. The APSA has been for many years heavily dependent on donor funding and the EU support had been focused on contributing to APSA's basic operational costs. We make a number of recommendations for improving the EU's approach, aimed at fostering African Union's ownership of the APSA, refocusing EU support and making the Commission's interventions consistently results-based.

Based on intellectual openness and an interest in transdisciplinary perspectives, this edited volume introduces scholars of African Peace and Security to innovative methodological and conceptual approaches, offering new insights into the inner life of APSA.

This volume offers an informed and critical analysis of the operationalization and institutionalization of the peace and security architecture by the African Union and Africa's Regional Economic Communities (RECs). In creating this architecture, the African Union and the RECs tread new ground with potentially significant consequences to the lives and livelihoods of millions of Africans who are affected by war and armed conflict. In-depth, critical chapters inform, clarify and provide key points for reflection on the architecture as a whole as well as on each of the structures currently under implementation. The volume examines the institutions that will carry the mandate forward, raises pertinent research questions for the successful operationalization of the architecture and debates the medium and long-term challenges to implementation. Students and researchers of African approaches to peace building, conflict resolution and regional security will benefit from the deep and critical engagement of issues covered in this volume by world renowned scholars and practitioners.

The peace and security partnership under the JAES has three goals: improving political dialogue; developing African Union (AU) security institutions - known as the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA); and funding African-led peace-support operations. [...] EU-African dialogue on peace and security has advanced at an official level (although less so at the political level), for example through regular joint meetings of the political and security committees of both the EU and the AU. [...] Most importantly, the EU-Africa security partnership has received substantial European funding, with over €1 billion channelled through the African Peace Facility (APF) - a dedicated financing mechanism to support the peace and security activities of the AU and sub-regional organisations, including the APSA architecture -since 2004. [...] In particular, the 2011 Libya crisis created a significant rift between the AU and EU, as military action led by France, the UK and the US ignored the AU's efforts to establish a roadmap for Gadaffi to step down. [...] Furthermore, APSA's effectiveness is hindered by ongoing rivalries over leadership and legitimacy between the AU and some of the stronger regional bodies, as seen in the case of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Mali.

This book analyses security cooperation in the domain of inter-regionalism, addressing the emergence of the African Union as a regional actor and its impact on EU-Africa relations. It explores the transformative potential of security cooperation for equality, partnership and local ownership in EU-Africa relations.

The humanitarian crises caused by civil conflicts and wars in Africa are too great in scope for an adequate and effective continental response. The founding of the African Union and the drafting of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, the basis for collective action against genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity makes this a critical time to reflect on how best to address regional conflicts. This book responds to new regional conflicts over health, water, land and food security in the world's poorest, most socially fragmented continent. The work assesses African regional security arrangements and provides new policy recommendations for the future.