African leaders are gathering in Ethiopia this week as the continent stands at a regional precipice.
In the next five years, Africans will constitute over 40% of the world’s young people. By 2050, nearly a quarter of the world’s working age population will reside on the continent. Africa has over 65% of the world’s remaining arable land and around a third of its mineral reserves, making the continent essential to local, regional, and global growth and setting it up for unparalleled economic influence in the years and decades to come.
These assets stand out as an exceptional force for progress. Now more than ever, Africa’s success depends on pragmatic and accountable leadership. The continent’s leaders, gathering this week for the 39th African Union Summit, must take realistic steps toward their longstanding goal of implementing African-led solutions to African problems, with fewer declarations and more concrete, durable actions to improve people’s daily lives.
But African leaders gathering in Addis Ababa face an unprecedented landscape of conflict that currently accounts for 40% of the world’s armed violence and impacts more than 102 million people, according to The Independent.
Sudan’s civil war bleeds across borders, regional allegiances, and local institutions. Ethiopia’s Tigray settlement remains fragile. Eritrea’s decades long isolation and simmering tensions with Ethiopia sit uneasily alongside broader Red Sea instability. Somalia struggles to establish consistent security. And a toxic mix of insurgency, weak state institutions, and cascading military coups have imploded stability across the Sahel, while the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo remains poisoned by resource grabs and regional interference.
Continent-wide, jihadi groups and other illiberal actors easily move across porous borders. Across both urban and rural landscapes, nefarious external actors – including Russia, China, Belarus, and Iran – eagerly exploit resources and encourage instability for their benefit at the grave expense of civilian populations.
As a result, human rights abuses, food insecurity, mass displacement, and predatory behavior by smugglers, warlords, and gangs ravage communities across Africa. And corruption and democratic backsliding continue to expand.
Despite decades of high-level international engagement, conflicts simmer and ignite in a vicious cycle that victimizes and revictimizes the continent’s greatest resource: its young people.
While each of these situations is distinct, many of the causes are familiar and the lessons remain the same: Diplomacy without accountability and consequences is devoid of impact.
Good leaders know that prosperity and stability aren’t ushered in through sweeping communiqués, but via incremental, sometimes tedious, enforceable steps that change incentives on the ground. Great leaders recognize that the human condition matters and that progress isn’t possible without prioritizing civilian well-being and a strong commitment to justice, transparency, and peace.
Of course, this is easier said than done.
Let’s be clear: Implementation is difficult. It’s slow, often mired in bureaucracy and politics. But it’s where the focus must be.
At the George W. Bush Institute, we recognize that the framework of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved over 26 million lives, succeeded by treating and preventing HIV/AIDS not as an abstract pledge but as an implementation challenge.
PEPFAR paired sustained U.S. funding with clear targets and accountability and strengthened delivery through local health systems. By focusing on access, prevention and capacity, PEPFAR created a more hopeful future for Africa’s next generation. PEPFAR’s example is not just a public health roadmap, but a tangible demonstration that step-by-step execution, localized partnerships and community ownership transforms lives.
This same approach can help frame success at the African leaders’ summit and beyond, particularly in tackling security challenges.
First, leaders should focus on concrete tools that hold bad actors – especially bad leaders – accountable. Targeted sanctions and other financial pressures are critical. Many already exist at the United Nations – they just need greater enforcement and consistency to work.
Second, the African Union should prioritize and resource its long-stated commitment to the care of its citizens. This includes actionable consequences for those who cruelly disrupt humanitarian programs, protected aid corridors, and essential services for vulnerable communities. Commitments to support monitoring and reporting are equally important. At the same time, African Union peace operations must be resourced realistically, with both new and existing mandates tied to credible funding and timelines.
As the world faces ongoing conflicts in Europe, and hot spots flare around the world, the African leaders’ core responsibility is to care for their people through implementation, pragmatism, and achievable goals.
President George W. Bush, like many Africans, believes in the continent as a “place of freedom and democracy and prosperity and hope,” as he said in a meeting in the Oval Office in 2004. The opportunity before African leaders in 2026 is to operationalize these aspirations, with an unambiguous focus on civilian lives, especially young people.
For decades, the African Union has balanced demands for African cohesion versus national sovereignty, the prioritization of human care and dignity against scarce resources, and the promise of democratic stability versus the thirst for political power. Now is the time to focus on pragmatism, and dignity. This isn’t a retreat from African ideals, but rather the most credible path to achieving the continent’s dreams.
