African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO) - 10th Edition

Over the past decade, the African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO) has emerged as a key platform for strategic dialogue on peace and security in Africa. By convening senior policymakers, military leaders, diplomats, security practitioners, and scholars, APSACO has provided a space to examine the structural drivers of conflict, instability, and power shaping the continent’s security environment. Now in its 10th edition, APSACO reflects ten years of sustained engagement with Africa’s evolving security dynamics and its positioning within a changing international order.

Over this period, APSACO has accompanied major shifts affecting Africa’s peace and security landscape, including the persistence of asymmetric conflicts, the limits of peace operations, the recalibration of external military involvement, and the renewed centrality of coercive power in regional politics. This continuity has consolidated APSACO as a reference forum for strategic reflection on Africa’s security trajectories. 

The Annual Report on African Geopolitics

APSACO is closely anchored in the Annual Report on African Geopolitics, the Policy Center for the New South’s flagship publication offering a strategic reading of Africa’s geopolitical environment. Produced by African and international experts, the Report analyzes long-term shifts in power relations, conflict systems, and strategic influence across the continent. The 2026 edition examines Africa as a space where global rivalries, regional ambitions, and localized conflict dynamics intersect. It addresses the evolution of warfare, the role of external actors, the strategic importance of critical spaces and infrastructures, and the growing impact of technological and informational dimensions on contemporary security environments. The Report will be presented on June 10th (afternoon), on the eve of APSACO, through a dedicated panel of contributing authors, providing an analytical foundation for the Conference discussions.

Theme of the Year

For its 10th edition, APSACO 2026 will be convened under the theme: “A Decade in Review: Africa’s evolving security landscape”. This theme captures the profound reconfiguration of Africa’s peace and security environment since 2016. Over the past decade, the continent has experienced recurrent political and military disruptions, the consolidation of asymmetric and protracted conflicts, the persistence of terrorist violence, and the limits of existing conflict management mechanisms. These trends have been reinforced by structural changes in the conduct of warfare, including the diffusion of new technologies, information operations, and evolving forms of coercion, which have blurred traditional distinctions between war and peace and challenged established security frameworks.

Focus of APSACO 2026

APSACO 2026 will connect short-term security developments with longer-term strategic trajectories. Discussions will focus on identifying the patterns and constraints shaping Africa’s security transition, with particular attention to the normalization of instability and military intervention, the entrenchment of asymmetric violence, the adaptation of peace operations and regional security architectures, and the impact of shifting external partnerships and technological change on power, sovereignty, and the use of force.

By adopting a decade-long perspective, APSACO 2026 aims to strengthen strategic understanding of Africa’s security challenges and contribute to more coherent and realistic approaches to peace and security at a time of profound transformation.