African leaders will meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week for the annual African Union (AU) summit. This year’s theme “Silencing the Guns”, is reviving an aspiration to end war and prevent genocide on the continent by 2020 set out by African leaders in 2013, during the 50th anniversary celebrations of the AU’s predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity.
Though the aim of resolving all conflicts in seven years set the bar incredibly high, the AU has scored some successes. Just this past year it stepped in at critical moments to preserve Sudan’s revolution and stop it from descending into violence; and helped produce an agreement between the government and rebels in the Central African Republic (CAR). Elsewhere, however — from Cameroon to the Sahel to South Sudan — it has fallen short.
