Africa’s Peace Problem Is Also a Financing Problem, Rwanda Tells AU

The 21st African Union Extraordinary Session of Heads of State and Government was held in Luanda, Angola.

LUANDA – Africa’s struggle to end its conflicts is not only a question of diplomacy or political will. It is also a question of who pays for the continent’s peace efforts.

At the 21st African Union Extraordinary Session of Heads of State and Government in Luanda, Angola, Prime Minister Dr. Justin Nsengiyumva challenged African leaders to move beyond repeatedly adopting peace and security decisions without putting predictable African resources behind them.

Representing President Paul Kagame Nsengiyumva argued that Africa cannot build lasting peace while depending heavily on external partners to finance its response to conflicts or leaving mediation to actors outside the continent.

“Good decisions are not enough; this Summit will be measured by our collective ability to implement them, with the discipline and predictable financing required to give them life,” Nsengiyumva said.

Africa continues to face conflicts that have become increasingly prolonged and complex, placing enormous demands on governments, regional organizations and peace operations.

Yet the continent’s ability to finance its own peace and security architecture has remained a persistent challenge. For Rwanda, that makes the African Union Peace Fund a critical part of the solution.

PM Dr. Justin Nsengiyumva represented President Paul Kagame at the 21st African Union Extraordinary Session of Heads of State and Government.

Nsengiyumva welcomed the adoption of the Luanda Action Plan and its Implementation Matrix on strengthening conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms, while reaffirming Rwanda’s continued support for the Peace Fund.

The Peace Fund initiative, headed by Rwandan economist and former African Development Bank president, Dr Donald Kaberuka, is tasked with mobilizing resources for African-led peace and security efforts through a more predictable, member-funded financing.

He described the fund as an “indispensable instrument” for providing predictable, home-grown financing for African-led mediation, conflict prevention and peace-support operations.

“Africa cannot continue to rely primarily on external partners to finance the resolution of its own conflicts, nor externalize its mediation to actors outside the continent. We must build the confidence, capacity and resources to lead our own peace processes,” Nsengiyumva cautioned.

From Reacting to Preventing

The financing question is closely tied to another weakness in Africa’s response to conflict where action often accelerates only after violence has already erupted.

According to Nsengiyumva, early-warning systems should lead to intervention before disputes become full-scale crises, particularly where the underlying causes are already visible.

He called for early-warning mechanisms to be connected to sustained action against those structural problems rather than being used mainly to trigger diplomatic engagement once a crisis has already begun.

That approach puts the AU’s challenge beyond the question of peacekeeping troops and emergency mediation. It asks whether African institutions have the resources and political authority to identify and address tensions before they become wars.

Rwanda Puts Its Own Experience On the Table

Rwanda’s intervention at the summit also drew on its own experience of rebuilding after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The country has become one of Africa’s significant contributors to international peacekeeping, including missions in the Central African Republic and South Sudan. It has also undertaken bilateral security interventions in the Central African Republic and Mozambique.

Nsengiyumva said Rwanda was prepared to share lessons from its own post-genocide recovery, pointing to mechanisms including Gacaca courts, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, Umuganda and Abunzi mediation.

The underlying principle is that lasting peace cannot be built entirely through external mediation or security operations. It also requires institutions that can address grievances, rebuild trust and give communities a stake in the political order.

The continent needs the financial resources to respond to conflicts, but it also needs the institutional confidence to lead those responses and the political commitment to confront the causes of conflict before they become emergencies.

Building an Africa capable of preventing, managing and resolving its own conflicts is a task and challenge where ambition should be turned into resources rather than putting together another set of decisions waiting for someone else to finance them.