As African leaders gather in Addis Ababa for the African Union’s annual summit, the contrast between the agenda and the continent’s turmoil is stark. From Sudan’s brutal war to spiralling violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and jihadist insurgencies across the Sahel, Africa is in the grip of overlapping crises that the AU appears increasingly unable, or unwilling, to confront.

Created in 2002 to replace the Organisation of African Unity, the AU was meant to embody a new era of “non-indifference” to atrocities and unconstitutional power grabs. It now counts 55 member states, many of them on opposing sides of the very conflicts the bloc is supposed to mediate. Those same governments have repeatedly blocked efforts to give the AU real enforcement powers, leaving it chronically under-funded and politically constrained.

The organisation has missed its own deadlines to become self-financing and still relies on external partners for most of its budget, even as Western donors scale back support. Diplomats say this dependence further weakens its leverage over member states accused of abuses or democratic backsliding.

Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, the current chair of the AU’s executive arm, is left issuing statements of “deep concern” as wars, coups and sham elections proliferate. The International Crisis Group has warned that at the very moment the AU is most needed, it is “arguably at its weakest” since its creation.

Since 2020, Africa has seen a wave of at least 10 military coups. The AU’s own rules bar coup leaders from contesting subsequent elections, yet suspensions have quietly been lifted and juntas rehabilitated. Gabon and Guinea were readmitted despite clear breaches of the charter. At the same time, the AU has offered warm congratulations for elections widely denounced by observers as rigged and violent.

Analysts argue that the deeper problem lies with the continent’s rulers themselves. Many no longer seek the moral authority once associated with pan-Africanism and are determined to shield their domestic politics from regional scrutiny. Power within the AU remains concentrated in the Assembly of Heads of State, which includes some of the world’s longest-serving leaders.

AU officials insist the picture is not entirely bleak, pointing to quiet diplomacy that has helped avert open war in flashpoints such as Abyei, between Sudan and South Sudan, and to important work on health, trade and development. Yet as the summit focuses on technical themes like water sanitation, critics question whether the organisation can still claim to speak for Africans whose lives are defined by conflict, repression and unaccountable rule.