The 39th Summit of the African Union
The 39th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) took place in Addis Ababa over the weekend. The two-day summit was opened by Angolan President João Lourenço, who handed over the rotating presidency for 2026 to his Burundian counterpart Évariste Ndayishimiye. The summit also saw the presentation of the AU’s annual theme for the current year, entitled ‘Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063’. Guinea and Gabon also took part in the meeting for the first time since their suspension was lifted.
Both countries held presidential elections for the first time last year following military coups – Gabon in 2023 and Guinea in 2021 – thus taking an important step towards a return to constitutional order. This was the AU Security Council’s justification for lifting the suspension. In this context, the AU reaffirmed its zero tolerance of unconstitutional changes of government. It also expressed deep concern about the persistence of conflicts, terrorism, violent extremism, and humanitarian crises in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and the Sahel region. Against this backdrop, the AU signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with regional economic communities and regional mechanisms on the deployment of the African Standby Force over the weekend. Kenya’s President William Ruto also presented a report on institutional reforms and called for an increase in the AU Peace Fund from 400 million to one billion US dollars. Other reform proposals included the operationalisation of the African Court of Justice, the Pan-African Parliament and the sustainable financing of the AU. During the assembly, it was also decided to give Nigeria a permanent seat on the board of the African Central Bank, which is to be established by 2028. In future, the central bank will be the sole issuer of an African common currency. It will also regulate and supervise the African banking sector and set interest rates and exchange rates in cooperation with the member states.
In the area of economic and development policy, the heads of state and government emphasised the transformation of African food systems, strengthening resilience to climate shocks, and promoting industrialisation, intra-African trade and value creation as priorities of Agenda 2063. In addition, Lourenço is to take over the chairmanship of the AU Development Agency AUDA-NEPAD’s Heads of State and Government Committee (HSGOC) for two years. Meanwhile, AUDA-NEPAD Executive Director Nardos Bekele-Thomas was confirmed in office for another four years.
Parallel to the AU summit in Addis Ababa, more than 60 heads of state and government as well as high-ranking government representatives from around 120 countries met in Germany at the Munich Security Conference. However, the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, was not present; she attended the AU summit as a guest of honour instead. In her speech during the opening ceremony, she emphasised the strategic partnership between Europe and Africa and promoted Italy’s Mattei Plan. This was presented at the first Italy-Africa Summit in 2024 and aims, among other things, to curb migration to Europe (Press Review 5/2024). Fourteen African countries are now part of the Mattei Plan, which has a financial volume of 3.5 billion euros and also co-finances infrastructure projects such as the Lobito Corridor. The second Italy-Africa Summit, which took place in the Ethiopian capital on the eve of the AU Assembly, focused in particular on the progress made in implementing the Mattei Plan. Meloni also announced comprehensive debt restructuring as part of joint development projects and the inclusion of debt suspension clauses for countries affected by extreme weather events. More detailed information was not provided at this stage
Kenya publishes intelligence report on recruitment
On Wednesday, the Kenyan National Intelligence Service (NIS) presented a report to parliament on the recruitment of Kenyan nationals to fight on the Russian side in the war against Ukraine. According to the report, over 1,000 people have been recruited so far. Until now, the Kenyan government had assumed that around 200 people were involved. The intelligence service’s findings suggest that there are currently 89 Kenyans on the front lines in Ukraine. At least one person has been killed in combat and 39 are believed to be injured. A further 28 are missing. Another 35 individuals are believed to be in military camps in Russia.
The report was presented by Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah of the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA), who spoke of a ‘deeply disturbing’ network of civil servants allegedly working with recruitment agencies and organised human trafficking rings to recruit Kenyans for the war against Ukraine. According to the NIS, airport employees, border officials, members of the criminal investigation department and employees of the national labour authority, among others, are said to have been involved in facilitating the departure of those recruited. Contacts with the Russian Embassy in Nairobi and the Kenyan Embassy in Moscow are also said to have been used to obtain visas for entry into Russia. Those recruited were promised monthly salaries of up to $2,400, high signing bonuses and even Russian citizenship. Ichung’wah said that fictitious civilian job offers were often used to attract recruits, and many of those recruited were sent directly to the front lines after only a few days of military training. In a statement on Thursday, the Russian Embassy in Nairobi rejected the allegations. It said that its staff had never been involved in ‘illegal recruitment’.
Other African countries have also recently reported the recruitment of their own citizens for armed conflicts abroad. On Sunday, the Nigerian Foreign Ministry warned of increasing recruitment, without explicitly referring to Russia. According to media reports, at least 36 Nigerians have been recruited by the Russian army. Five of them are said to have been killed in Ukraine. Similar reports have also recently emerged from Uganda, whose president, Yoweri Museveni, is considered a long-standing partner of Moscow. It is also said that recruits were promised well-paid jobs before being forced into military service upon their arrival in Russia. On Wednesday, following talks between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, four of the 17 South Africans stranded in Ukraine’s Donbass region who sent emergency calls to their government last year returned home.
In November 2025, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated that it had identified at least 1,436 people from 36 African countries who had been involved in combat operations on the Russian side. Observers have long warned about Russia’s efforts to recruit young Africans in the face of mounting losses in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia is also stepping up its diplomatic efforts in Africa. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov announced that his ministry would transfer numerous diplomats from Europe to Africa to reopen around a dozen embassies there. After embassies had already been opened or reopened in Niger, Sierra Leone and South Sudan in 2025, as well as in Burkina Faso and Equatorial Guinea in 2024, Russia now intended to increase the number of its embassies on the continent to 49. Accordingly, planned missions include, among others, representations in The Gambia, Liberia, Togo, and the Comoros.
In other news
On Saturday, the 61st edition of the Argungu International Fishing and Cultural Festival took place with its traditional fishing competition in the Matan-Fada River in Kebbi State in north-western Nigeria. The participating fishermen and women use traditional methods such as hand-woven nets and calabashes – vessels made from the hollowed-out and dried shell of the bottle gourd – or their bare hands. The winner of the competition was fisherman Abubakar Usman, who caught the biggest fish of the day, weighing 59 kilograms, and won cash and non-cash prizes. The remaining catches were sold at local markets. According to the organisers, the UNESCO-recognised festival attracted over 40,000 visitors, including Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu. The festivities were established in 1934 to symbolise the reconciliation between the Sokoto Caliphate and the Argungu Emirate, which had been enemies for around 100 years. Since 2010, it has been suspended several times due to infrastructure and security problems in northern Nigeria and has now returned after a six-year hiatus.