Can Africa reinvent mediation before its wars outrun diplomacy?

Kampala, Uganda | URN | If the first challenge confronting African diplomacy is that peace negotiations are becoming increasingly transactional, and the second is that modern wars have outgrown traditional mediation, then the third and perhaps most difficult question is this: what should replace the old model?

That question has moved from academic circles into the centre of African diplomacy.

Former presidents, veteran mediators, regional organisations and international peace practitioners increasingly argue that Africa’s mediation architecture must undergo fundamental reform if it is to remain relevant in a world where conflicts are more fragmented, external actors more influential, and international consensus more elusive.

Their conclusion is striking. The problem is no longer simply that wars have become harder to end. It is that mediation itself is struggling to keep pace with the changing nature of conflict.

Former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok believes the crisis begins with assumptions inherited from another era.

“The current templates that have been guiding us in mediation were a product of a certain period—a certain hegemony period,” he said.

“You can call it the liberal order, or liberal principles, whatever. They were incubated during this period. But the interesting thing is that in Africa they were creatively applied over a period of time. That time may have come to an end.”

For decades, African mediation followed a familiar script. “There is a conflict. We know what to do. We are trained to do A, B, C, D. Stop the war. Security arrangements. Then you move into wealth sharing, power sharing and, if the war has been so terrible, you include transitional justice as part of the template. Since inclusivity becomes a permanent challenge, you move to national dialogue.”

Those approaches, Hamdok said, helped resolve many of Africa’s conflicts.

“All of these were templates that were creatively applied through this period. Now this period may have come to an end because war has made them obsolete. That is why we need to discuss the nature of the wars that are taking place and how we are going to respond. Maybe there are certain templates that need to be rescued, but we have reached the end of the line.”

His argument reflects a growing belief among African peace practitioners that mediation must evolve because the wars themselves have evolved.

Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths believes one of the biggest shifts has been the changing purpose of negotiations themselves.

He cautions against assuming that transactional bargaining is something entirely new.

“Transaction has always been there. We practised it in Sudan. We listened to transactional requests, and we responded to them. But these transactions were taking place under the rubric of a politically defined outcome to the mediation.”

According to Griffiths, bargaining served a larger political objective. “The whole purpose of mediation was a political outcome. So long as you had a mediator who kept that intact, then transactions could take place under this framework.”

Today, Griffiths argues, that political anchor is weakening. “Now that’s not there anymore. Transaction is now having its own life. And it is no more called mediation. It is called deal-making.”

His observation echoes concerns raised in the first part of this series by Kenya’s Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who questioned whether mediators were increasingly acting as “business negotiators” or “arbitrators of transactions” rather than genuine peacemakers.

Together, their observations suggest that African diplomacy is confronting more than a crisis of implementation.

It may be confronting a crisis of purpose. As mediation becomes more contested, another debate has emerged: who possesses the legitimacy to lead peace processes?

For Hamdok, legitimacy cannot simply be borrowed from external powers. He argues that organisations such as the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) derive their authority directly from African states.

“All of these multilateral institutions were created willingly by member states because each member state reached its limits in exercising their sovereignty.”

“They created these multilateral institutions as instruments of enhancing their sovereignty through collective means, to realise their sovereignty through collectivity.”

He argues that formal mandates alone are insufficient. “There is also a legitimacy that multilateral institutions acquire by their actions, by the way they do their business, by their success stories, by their determination. They also acquire autonomous legitimacy. And this is not there.”

IGAD Executive Secretary Dr Workneh Gebeyehu said restoring confidence in African institutions is no longer optional.

“We gather today at a moment of profound consequence, not only for our region, but for the very idea of peace mediation itself,” he said.

“The world that made mediation possible, anchored in shared norms, functioning multilateralism and a minimum level of trust among states, is fragmenting before our eyes.”

Rather than another temporary crisis, he sees a fundamental shift in international politics.

“We are not simply living through a period of crisis. We are living through a transformation, an era in which mediation is no longer insulated from geopolitics but shaped by it; an era of competing initiatives, fragmented authority and diminishing coherence.”

He warned that principled mediation is increasingly giving way to short-term diplomacy.

“The space for principled, consensus-based engagement is narrowing, while short-term deal-making is gaining ground.”

For Workneh, Sudan has become the ultimate test. “Three years into a devastating war, mediation has not stopped the carnage. Despite sustained efforts… we have neither halted the fighting nor secured a credible political process. This is failure. And it must be acknowledged.”

He warned that the implications extend far beyond Sudan itself. “Sudan is fast becoming the epicentre of a deeper crisis, the erosion of mediation itself. If mediation cannot make a difference in Sudan, its credibility everywhere is at risk.”

Former AU and UN mediator Abdul Mohammed argues that mediation must recover its political purpose. Too often, he says, diplomacy has become an exercise in managing meetings rather than transforming conflicts.

“Too often, mediation has shifted from shaping political outcomes to managing diplomatic processes. Meetings proliferate. Statements multiply. Tracks expand. Yet leverage weakens and coherence declines.” “The result is the paradox increasingly visible across many conflicts today: more mediation, but less peace.”

He argues that simply improving existing mediation processes will not be enough. “The challenge is not simply to improve mediation processes. It is to redefine mediation politically, strategically and institutionally for an entirely different era of conflict.”

According to Mohammed, three weaknesses increasingly undermine contemporary peace efforts.

“First, there is a deficit of political strategy. Mediation has too often become procedural rather than transformational.”

“Second, there is a deficit of coherence. Multiple actors engage without alignment, weakening leverage and creating opportunities for conflict actors to exploit divisions among mediators themselves.”

“And third, there is a deficit of legitimacy. Formal peace processes often remain disconnected from the societies most affected by war.”

Workneh’s warning echoed many of the themes that emerged throughout the debate.

The question was no longer simply how to mediate conflicts more effectively, but whether the assumptions that have guided African peace diplomacy for decades remain valid in a world of fragmented conflicts, competing mediation tracks and intensifying geopolitical rivalry.

That debate is increasingly reflected in academic research. In their study, The Changing Face of Peace: African Mediation and Paradigm Transitions, Mitchell Gallagher and Sajjad Ahamed argue that mediation in Africa is undergoing a profound shift.

Examining peace agreements concluded between 1975 and 2019, they find that regional organisations and neighbouring states have assumed a far more prominent role in mediation, while the dominance of traditional global powers has steadily diminished.

Rather than confirming the steady triumph of a rules-based international order, the authors contend that mediation continues to be shaped by geopolitical competition and that an emerging multipolar order is transforming the way peace processes are conducted.

Their findings reinforce many of the concerns raised by African policymakers and veteran mediators.

For Kenya’s Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, the danger is that mediation is becoming increasingly transactional, driven more by competing interests than by the search for lasting political settlements.

Former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok argues that the liberal mediation template that guided many African peace processes over the past three decades may have reached its limits in the face of today’s fragmented wars.

Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths insists that legitimacy, inclusive politics and multilateral cooperation remain indispensable, even as the international order becomes more fractured.

For IGAD Executive Secretary Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu, the challenge is to restore mediation as a coherent political strategy before Africa’s conflicts outpace the institutions established to resolve them.

Taken together, these perspectives point to a larger conclusion. Africa’s mediation architecture is not simply confronting more conflicts; it is operating in a fundamentally different international environment. Regional organisations are expected to shoulder greater responsibility even as external powers compete more aggressively for influence.

Wars have become longer, more fragmented and increasingly intertwined with regional and global rivalries.

At the same time, citizens continue to look to African institutions for solutions that are legitimate, durable and rooted in the continent’s own priorities.

Whether Africa is witnessing the end of one mediation paradigm or the emergence of another remains an open question.

What is increasingly difficult to dispute, however, is that the environment in which African peace diplomacy operates has fundamentally changed.

The continent’s future peace architecture will depend not only on who mediates its conflicts, but also on whether African institutions can reclaim the political legitimacy, strategic coherence and collective confidence needed to lead peace efforts in an increasingly contested international order.

This concludes our three-part analysis on the changing landscape of African mediation.

Across the series, we have examined how geopolitical rivalry, changing patterns of conflict and growing questions about legitimacy are reshaping peace diplomacy, and the difficult choices facing African institutions as they seek to preserve African leadership in resolving African conflicts.

Part One: Has African Peace Diplomacy Become Transactional? examined growing concerns that geopolitical competition and deal-making are reshaping peace diplomacy.

Part Two: Africa’s Wars Have Changed. Has Mediation Kept Pace? explored why veteran mediators believe traditional peace frameworks no longer correspond to the realities of modern conflict.

Part Three: Can Africa Reinvent Mediation Before Its Wars Outrun Diplomacy? examines how African policymakers and experienced mediators believe the continent can rebuild a more coherent, legitimate and politically effective peace architecture for a changing world.