AFRICA’S GEOPOLITICS AND SILENCING THE GUNS: AU – EU SECURITY ALLIANCE

Abstract

At the dawn of the 21st century, the African continent has witnessed major developments in connection to its peace and security as well as economic and geopolitical landscape. The socio-economic impacts of the COVID19 pandemic, the resurgence of unconstitutional changes of governments (UCG), the spread and intensification of the threat of terrorism, outbreak of new major armed conflicts in countries such as Sudan, interstate tensions and increasing concerns of potential state to state confrontations, and shifting geopolitical alliances are some of the major, interrelated trends that have marked the recent reality of the continent. Faced with these complex challenges at a time when the current global order centred around multilateralism has fallen into question, the African Union (AU) finds itself at a critical point where it needs to demonstrate effective leadership, not only to reassert its legitimacy by addressing the compounded challenges that confront Africa, but also to enhance its security alliance system in pursue of its silencing the guns goals. Utilizing an analytically qualitative methodology, this research examine the EU-AU strategies combating conflicting conflict in the continent of Africa in juxtaposing the current geo-political reality in Africa and to bring to limelight the resolution of the 6th EU-AU Summit in Peace and Security.