“The contribution of the first article in this edition will offer an analysis of the ideal of ‘African solutions to African problems’ within the framework of APSA and its role and limitations in Africa’s quest for maintaining its peace and security. The African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD): Restoring a relationship challenged? discusses the relationship between the AU and NEPAD that has exposed competition over status, scarce financial and human resources, policy influence and petty squabbles amongst diplomats and officials. The African Union’s diplomacy of the diaspora: Context, challenges and prospects This article examines the venture of the African Union (AU) into diasporic diplomacy. The article Between reactive and proactive interventionism: The African Union Peace and Security Council’s engagement in the Horn of Africa will assess the interventionism which the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) has fostered in the Horn of Africa region with particular reference to the Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Kenya. “The African Union Peace and Security mechanism’s crawl from design to reality: Was the Libyan crisis a depiction of severe limitations?” examines how the AU, through the PSC, handled the Libyan crisis in its (the AU’s) quest to effectively manage and promote peace and security. The African Union’s notion of ‘African solutions to African problems’ and the crises in Côte d’Ivoire (2010–2011) and Libya (2011) argues that in the two cases, the ‘marginalisation’ of the organisation was self-inflicted, because, had it taken a very strong united stance when the crises broke out, it would have created a strong basis from which to preclude the eventual direct intervention of the UN and France in Côte d’Ivoire; and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)2 and the UN in Libya. A review of the African Union’s experience in facilitating peaceful power transfers: Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, Libya and Sudan: Are there prospects for reform seeks to make a critical evaluation of four AU intervention efforts in situations of blocked political-democratic transitions, and to make suggestions on strengthening such efforts and enhancing credibility – in the eyes of ordinary Africans and the international community.”
