Is the AU Equipped to Advance Africa's Interests on the Global Stage?

Dec 13 , 2025. By Solomon A. Derso (PhD) ( Solomon A. Dersso (PhD) is a founding director of Amani Africa, a research and think-tank on African issues. This article has been shorted from its original version posted on https://amaniafrica-et.org/is-the-african-union-failing-countries-in-complex-political-transition-insights-from-the-peace-and-security-councils-recent-session/ upon the author's permission. )

Where the G-20 stated plainly that debt is obstructing development, the AU-EU Summit in Launada, Angola, declared that high debt “can be” an obstacle and “may limit” investment. African negotiators had initially presented stronger language backed by ECA and UNCTAD evidence, noting that African countries pay higher interest rates than others with similar risk ratings. Much of that text, along with calls for reforming global financial institutions, was removed the version that became the basis for the final AU-EU summit declaration.

Officials and representatives of the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) met late last month in Luanda, Angola, to toast the silver jubilee of their partnership.

From the podium, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, declared to share a "common destiny” with Africa. European Council Chief, Antonio Costa, followed with his assertions that the AU and EU had achieved a partnership “in a spirit of equality, respect, alliance and cooperation.”

However, viewed from the perspective of the substance of the partnership, these were echoes in a hollow. Critics lamented that Luanda fell right into the characterisation by Carlos Lopez, the former boss of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), of the nature of the partnership as reflecting a “self-deception trap”.

For the two days before the AU-EU summit, Johannesburg hosted the first Group of 20 (G-20) Summit on African soil. The meeting, themed “solidarity, equality and sustainability,” dealt with the same issues of debt reform, climate resilience, inclusive growth, and fairer global governance.

Notably, these are the same subjects covered in the AU-EU Summit Declaration, whose theme was ‘a prosperous and sustainable future for Africa and Europe and building a stronger commitment to multilateralism’. Yet, the approach and tone of the two gatherings diverged. The G20 Summit’s adoption of its Leaders’ Declaration at the outset was seen as a meaningful shift, especially given a boycott and pressure from the United States.

This successful start was hailed as an example of how multilateral diplomacy can proceed even without the traditional anchor of the post-World War II world order, including the US. Despite the challenges, the G-20 managed to produce a substantive agreement.

Debt distress featured prominently on the agenda. For Africa, the crisis has grown acute. At least 25 states are in debt distress, and three have defaulted. According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), African countries spent about 163 billion dollars on debt service in 2024 alone. Although these countries have lower debt-to-GDP ratios than those of the G-7, they face much higher interest rates.

The urgency was echoed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who told the G-20 delegates to "renew its efforts to advance debt sustainability, with a particular emphasis on African countries.” He underlined that a high level of debt “is one of the obstacles to inclusive growth in many developing economies, which limits their ability to invest in infrastructure, disaster resilience, healthcare, education and other development needs.”

The Johannesburg G-20 Declaration did not mince words about the gravity of the debt crisis. It recognised, using Ramaphosa’s phrase, that debt is “stifling public spending and economic growth.” The G-20 called for decisive action to address the high debt premium faced by borrowing countries, especially in Africa. On average, African governments spend 18pc of revenue on interest payments, up to six times more than G-7 or EU countries. The G20 was clear that heavy indebtedness is more than a hypothetical problem, but a real and present obstacle to development.

However, the AU-EU summit took a more hesitant approach. The language in its final declaration appeared to downplay the costs of debt distress. Rather than affirming that high debt is an obstacle, the Summit concluded that high debt “can be” an obstacle and “may limit” investment in key areas. The difference is subtle, but it speaks volumes. Where the G20 acknowledged high debt as an objective reality undermining growth, the AU-EU declaration left room for doubt, casting uncertainty about whether high debt actually carries such consequences.

The AU’s own draft, supported by evidence from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and UNCTAD, emphasised that African countries pay higher interest rates than peers with similar risk ratings and called for reform of the international debt architecture. The AU’s draft also referenced the need for enhancing the representation and voice of developing countries in multilateral development banks and other international economic and financial institutions. These calls for change were diluted or omitted in the final summit document.

One striking example was the removal of language supporting recent initiatives to resolve the debt crisis, such as “we welcome the Sevilla Forum on Debt launched at UNCTAD 19 to tackle entrenched debt crises in developing countries.” Instead, as reports from New York confirmed, the EU voted against a resolution on sovereign debt as the AU-EU Summit was taking place. The section on shaping a prosperous and sustainable future for Africa and Europe, which in the AU’s draft reaffirmed a commitment to economic transformation and inclusive growth, was also left out. The final text foregrounded the EU’s Global Gateway Initiative, which was cast in a very positive light by comparison to how it was presented in the AU draft.

The AU’s draft emphasised the need for greater transparency, timely delivery, and measurable impact to ensure that promised investment aligns with Africa’s priorities and Agenda 2063. It called for project selection and implementation to be conducted jointly to ensure African ownership. But this language was left out.

Beyond debt, the framing of the Summit declaration obscured the more pointed concerns raised by AU member states about climate action or environment protection measures like the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which could increase costs, limit competitiveness, and undermine efforts to manage natural resources and biodiversity-based exports (for example for coffee producers in Ethiopia).

Reference to ensuring respect for Article 3(5) of the UNFCCC, which guards against arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination in climate measures, was also removed.

After lengthy negotiations, the final AU-EU Summit declaration included only a vague commitment to maintaining open, transparent, and inclusive channels of dialogue on trade-related environmental measures, such as CBAM and EUDR. The more specific and reasonable requests for adequate time, capacity building, and flexibility for African countries to adapt to new regulations were dropped. Instead, the final statement incorporated only that “the EU and AU will tackle together challenges posed to African exporters in sustainably managing natural resources, including biodiversity-based exports.”

This masked the core issue that trade-related environmental measures themselves restrict trade access and impose undue burden on African traders.

The G-20 declaration, while not addressing CBAM directly, at least stated explicitly that “measures taken to combat climate change, including unilateral ones, should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade.” This approach reflected a more assertive recognition of African and developing-country concerns about environmental regulations such as CBAM.

The differences between the two summits go beyond the precise wording of declarations. They expose a recurring pattern in Africa’s international engagement. The asymmetric power dynamics that become visible during negotiations mean that drafts critical to advancing Africa's needs with concrete proposals give way to watered-down final versions that serve the interests of more powerful actors.

The story of the Luanda Summit is as much about Africa’s diplomatic agency as it is about Europe’s dominance. The AU and its member states were not powerless. Their initial draft, if pursued, could have set the tone for a more robust outcome. Instead, in direct negotiations with the EU, AU leaders set aside their own proposals in favour of a version shaped by European priorities. Any subsequent efforts to reclaim lost ground were largely cosmetic, especially on debt, climate measures, and the reform of global tax and financial systems.

The only partial recovery was in the language about the global rules-based order.

The final declaration dropped the ambiguous “rules-based international order” in favour of a more neutral and precise reference to “commitment to international order based on international law and effective multilateralism grounded in international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and its Purposes and Principles, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.” The Summit also restored a reference to ongoing work toward a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, which had been deleted from the AU’s own draft. Yet these were modest victories.

What these twin summits revealed is the continuing power asymmetry in global governance. The G-20 meeting in Johannesburg, for all its own limitations, generated more genuine excitement and substantive engagement with Africa’s core concerns than the AU-EU summit in Luanda. The symbolism and celebration in Angola belied the underlying reality. Africa’s interests remain underrepresented and sometimes subordinated to the preferences of more powerful partners. As Lopez put it, the risk is falling into a self-deception trap, mistaking surface-level harmony for real progress.

The episode should invite a broader question.

Is the AU truly equipped to advance Africa’s interests on the global stage?

The events in Luanda demonstrated that Africa’s leaders and negotiators have the capacity, and perhaps the obligation, to push harder for outcomes that address the continent’s deepest challenges. The lesson of the November 2025 Summits is not only about the limitations of multilateral partnerships but about the agency African governments should exercise if the continent’s voice is to carry weight in the world’s halls of power.

As the dust settles on the back-to-back summits in Johannesburg and Luanda, the differences in approach and substance remain. One was notable for its frank acknowledgement of the crisis and for offering at least a path toward action, while the other, wrapped in the language of partnership and progress, left the core issues not even properly acknowledged. The contrast lays bare the long road still ahead for Africa to achieve genuine equality, respect, and cooperation in its international partnerships, ideals so confidently proclaimed from the podium but still distant in practice.

PUBLISHED ON Dec 13,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1337]