In 2000, African Heads of State and Government agreed on “the need to promote peace, security and stability as a prerequisite for the implementation of our development and integration agenda”.
The Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC), which was adopted in July 2002 and entered into force in December 2003, entrusts the PSC with extensive powers for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. It is against this background that the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) was conceived, as a set of functional tools around the PSC, to seek to respond, in a comprehensive and entirely complementary manner, to the full range of complex issues inherent in crises on the African continent.
The APSA includes the Peace and Security Council, the Panel of the Wise, the Continental Early Warning System, the African Standby Force, and the Regional Economic Communities and Regional Mechanisms.
