By Adonis Byemelwa
The gavel that ended the 39th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union didn’t fall; it settled softly, almost sweetly, over the conference hall in Addis Ababa. Delegates got up. The aides got the folders. The last handshakes were caught on camera.
Outside, convoys waited in the highland air. Inside, the language of success stayed strong: promises were kept, partnerships were deepened, and togetherness was restored. Anyone who has seen these summits happen understands how they work. The hope is real. So is the tiredness.
African diplomacy has learned how to sound urgent without sounding like it wants to fight. Communiqués proceed slowly, like experienced negotiators, never accusing, rarely binding, and always hopeful. Nonetheless, optimism feels like a coin that is running out throughout most of the continent today.
Events do not want to comply with diplomatic pacing since they happen outside the guarded stillness of summit halls. War keeps going on in Sudan, forcing millions of people to leave their homes more quickly than mediation mechanisms can help. Armed groups take advantage of a weak government in the Sahel.
People in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo still think of peace in weeks instead of years. Drought and displacement are quietly changing the political landscape across the Horn of Africa, where climate shocks and instability are connected.
In such a context, reaffirmation starts to feel less like leadership and more like a ritual. Not because the summit did not want to do anything. The agenda was broad, including speeding up the integration of the continent, making progress on water and sanitation targets, establishing financial independence, reforming institutions, and protecting Africa’s place in global governance debates. The issue is not eyesight. Africa comes up with plans at an amazing rate.
The issue is buildup. Layered frameworks frequently reside on top of older frameworks, adding new reporting requirements without getting rid of the old ones. Officials go home with orders that depend on ministries that are already having trouble paying off debt, dealing with political instability, or not having enough staff.
Implementation does not fail in a big way; it just slows down until the following peak cycle, when momentum fades. Some critics see this as a sign of incompetence. That does not get to the harder truth.
The AU was never meant to be a powerful organisation that could force sovereign states to do things. Enforcement powers are nevertheless limited on purpose, unlike integration attempts in other places. Heads of state answer first to their own voters and their own political survival. The organising concept is consensus, not coercion.
But recognising structural restrictions does not justify institutional intransigence. The summit’s statement again stressed the need to resolve disputes and speed up the goals of Agenda 2063, but there are still no clear ways to implement these goals.
There are ways to keep an eye on things, including the African Peer Review Mechanism’s governance assessments, but in the end, participation and compliance depend on political openness that is voluntary.
Peer pressure does not function the same way when the reputational costs are very different between states. Not having timeframes is not just a matter of procedure. It sets expectations. When timelines go fuzzy, so does responsibility.
Think about how to pay for it. Despite long-standing promises of financial independence through member-state payments and levy mechanisms, many continental programs rely significantly on outside funders.
Even well-designed initiatives can go off course between being too ambitious and too expensive if there are no clear financial pathways linked to deliverables. This is something diplomats know privately. Talks in hallways typically sound crisper than speeches at the podium.
There is a reform movement. Kenyan President William Ruto’s proposals aimed to make the summit more efficient by reducing the number of meetings and decision-making layers. This was a realisation that institutional congestion had become a problem in and of itself.
Scholars like Ueli Staeger have said that one of the most useful things that could come out of the session is administrative efficiency. Still, reform plans suffer the same problem that most continental projects do: everyone agrees that change is needed, as long as it does not weaken national power.
That tension came up a lot when people talked about changing how the world is run. Historically and strategically, Africa’s demand for fair representation at the United Nations Security Council makes sense.
Still, just repeating something will not change long-standing geopolitical facts. Permanent members hardly ever give up their privileges unless there is coordinated diplomatic pressure from allies, economic leverage, or a single bargaining approach.
Principle necessitates strategy. It is not fair to act as if nothing works either. AU mediation teams are still secretly becoming involved in election conflicts. Election observation missions help save unstable democracies from getting worse.
Humanitarian coordination typically happens without headlines because success seems like a catastrophe that was avoided instead of drama that was handled.
However, small steps forward have a hard time keeping up with situations that are getting worse quickly. Public debt is currently limiting the fiscal space in many states. Cholera outbreaks and water insecurity show deficiencies in infrastructure that people do not see as policy arguments, but as empty taps and congested clinics.
Young Africans who are looking for work in other countries do not look to declarations to see how well the continent is coming together; they look at whether borders are open to new opportunities.
Summits are more and more likely to become mirrors that show what people want instead of motors that make things happen. That annoyance is not just for commentators anymore. Gilbert Khadiagala, an expert on international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, said, “We need a moratorium on summits.” This was more about adjusting than cancelling. Some people say that fewer meetings might make them work together more closely.
Still, criticism alone cannot bring about change. If you want to be credible, you have to make a few changes. Continental decisions need benchmarks that can be tracked by the public, not only reports that are kept inside the company.
Funding commitments need to be linked to specific deliverables, not just general goals. When governments routinely flout agreed-upon criteria, peer review systems need to include options to escalate the issue. Also, and maybe most crucially, having fewer priorities would make it easier to do things better.
None of these requests gives up sovereignty. It calls for a new definition of leadership as measurable delivery instead of negotiated words. As soon as you leave the summit compound in Addis Ababa, you enter a different Africa.
Taxi drivers are disputing about gas costs, young businesspeople are talking about digital payments, and students are arguing about politics over coffee. Expectations are realistic. People do not care as much about statements as they do about whether the power stays on or trade borders keep open.
Credibility starts to fade when there is a gap between diplomatic time and real time. Africa has a lot of ideas. It has enough institutions. It has both skilled diplomats and ambitious plans. What it still needs is a strong enough penalty to turn agreement into action.
Until continental gatherings change from affirmation forums to benchmark-driven assemblies that citizens can follow in real time, summit season will continue to produce eloquent communiqués and beautiful photos. Though history tends to remember what happened. The question that everyone is asking across the continent is still pretty simple: Where are the results?
