Events
African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO) - 10th Edition
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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.
AGENDA
Thursday, June, 11th | |
| 09:00 - 09 :30 | Registration & Welcome Coffee |
| 09:30 - 09 :45 | APSACO Mobile Application Presentation |
| 09:45 - 10:00 | Introductory Remarks Karim El Aynaoui, Executive President, Policy Center for the New South. |
10:00 - 11:15 | Session 1: Ten Years On: Patterns, Shifts and Continuities in Africa’s Peace & Security Landscape
This panel offers a retrospective reflection on how Africa's peace and security landscape has evolved over the past decade. The aim is to identify the major shifts that have reshaped the continent's security environments, while also highlighting the structural continuities that persist. Discussions will focus on conflict dynamics, institutional and regional responses, the reconfiguration of political and security authority, and the key strategic lessons that can be drawn from this period.
Moderator: Ousmane Ndiaye, Author, Journalist, Senegal.
Speakers: Sharkdam Wapmuk, Head of Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Nigerian Defense Academy, Nigeria Sidi Mohamed Sidi, Attorney-at-Law, Professor of Law and Public Policy Expert, Mauritania Sampala Balima, Deputy Director-General, National Centre for Strategic Studies, Burkina Faso Garba Abdoul Azizou, Associate Researcher, CECRI-UCL, Former Special Advisor to the President of Niger, Niger. |
| 11:15 - 11:45 | Coffee Break |
11:45 - 13:00 | Session 2: Stability at Stake: Lessons from a Decade of Peacekeeping This panel offers a reflection on the lessons that can be drawn from the past decade of peacekeeping in Africa. It will examine how mandates have evolved, how intervention environments have changed, and the tensions between efforts at political stabilization, institutional legitimation, and regional ownership.
Moderator: Khadija Ihsane, Editor-in-Chief and TV Host, Medi1 TV, Morocco
Speakers: Jerome Mellon, Political Affairs Officer, UN. Hachem El Moummy, Diplomat and Researcher in International Relations, Morocco Cdt Mame Rokhaya Lo, Commander in the Senegalese National Gendarmerie, Senegal. Gen. Sidiki Daniel Traoré, Former UN Force Commander, MINUSCA, Military Advisor to the Chief of Staff, Burkina Faso Armed Force |
| 13:00 - 14:30 | Lunch Break |
| 14:30 - 15:00 | Conversation I
Chair Nouzha Chekrouni, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for The New South.
Speakers Muazu Umaru, Acting Secretary-General of the ECOWAS Commission. Jean Patrice Koe Jr., Director of Communication, Documentation and Diplomatic Archives, Spokesperson of the Ministry, Ministry of External Relations, Cameroon. |
| 15:00 - 16:15 | Session 3: A Decade of Terrorism: Containment and Adaptation amid Strategic Fatigue This panel offers a reflection on how terrorism in Africa has transformed over the past decade. It will examine armed groups' capacity to adapt their tactics, consolidate their territorial presence, and pursue their expansion strategies.
Moderator: Khadija Ihsane, Editor-in-Chief and TV Host, Medi1 TV.
Speakers: Alberto Munisso, Economic Analyst at the NATO Strategic Direction South Hub. Henry Pambi Sini, Deputy Director Intelligence, National Counter Terrorism, Office of the National Security Advisor, Nigeria. Mady Ibrahim Kanté, Lecturer and researcher at Kurukanfuga University in Bamako, and associate researcher at CIRAM, Laval University, Mali. Rida Lyammouri, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for The New South, Morocco. |
| 16:15 - 16:45 | Coffee Break |
16:45 - 18:00 | Session 4: Evolving Governance Models and Political Transitions in Africa This panel explores the contemporary transformations of governance models and political transition dynamics across Africa. It seeks to examine how political transitions reveal deeper reconfigurations of authority, legitimacy, and political order, particularly in contexts characterized by institutional fragility.
Moderator: Samantha Simmonds, News Anchor, BBC World News.
Speakers: Ousmane Ndiaye, Author, Journalist. Thomas Kent, Adjunct Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, USA. Helio Sanches, President of the 3D Foundation - Democracy, Development and Human Rights. Houyame Hakmi, Phd, Researcher in International Relations, Morocco |
Friday June, 12th | |
| 09:00 - 09:30 | Welcome Coffee |
| 09:30 - 10:45 | Session 5: Low-Cost Technologies and the Transformation of Conflict Dynamics This panel examines the spread of low-cost technologies and their impact on conflict dynamics across Africa. It explores how these tools are reshaping the use of violence, enhancing the adaptive capacities of armed actors, and influencing both the vulnerabilities and responses of states operating in highly diverse security environments.
Moderator: Samantha Simmonds, News Anchor, BBC World News
Speakers: Emiliano Alessandri, Senior Advisor on International Partnerships and Global Outreach, Agency fore Peacebuilding, Italy. Djenabou Cissé, Associate Researcher, Foundation for Scientific Research, France. Salem Al Hasi Salem, Nonresident Fellow, Stimson Center, Libya Niccola Milnes, Independent Conflict and Security Advisor, USA |
| 10:45 - 11:15 | Conversation 2
Moderator: Khadija Ihsane, Editor-in-Chief and TV Host, Medi1 TV, Morocco
Speakers: Lana Bleik, Fellow and Deputy Director, North Africa, Mediterranean, and Sahel Program, The Stimson Center, USA Charles Keter, Special Envoy, Office of the Special Envoy Great Lakes Region, Presidency of the Republic, Kenya. |
| 11:15 - 11:45 | Coffee Break |
11:45 - 13:00 | Session 6: Africa’s Security Future: Prospective to 2036 This panel offers a forward-looking reflection on the major trends that could reshape Africa’s security environment by 2036. It aims to explore possible trajectories emerging from transformations affecting regional balances, forms of political authority, security architectures, environmental pressures, demographic dynamics, and the evolving nature of external engagement on the continent.
Moderator: Samantha Simmonds, News Anchor, BBC World News
Speakers: Thembisa Fakude, Senior Research Fellow, Africa Asia Dialogues (Afrasid), Director and Co Shareholder of the Mail and Guardian, South Africa Abdelhak Bassou, Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South, Morocco. Abdisaid Muse Ali, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Government of Somalia, Somalia. Ibrahim Thiaw, Former Under-Secretary-General, UN, Environment and Development Policy, Mauritania. |
| 13:00 - 13:15 | Closing remarks Karim El Aynaoui, Executive President, Policy Center for the New South. |
