The 2063 Agenda is Africa’s master plan for transforming Africa into a global player. However, Africa currently remains a playground for global powers engaged in the resurgence of fierce geopolitical competition. For the foreseeable future, the world is more likely to be role-based rather than rule-based. Accordingly, relations between and among states will likely be based on transactional security alliances determined by immediate political and economic calculation rather than interests and values. Thus, trade will be neither free nor fair.

To achieve the goal of integrating Africa economically and politically, as well as to successfully implement the 2063 Agenda, the African Union and its member states must address two hydra-headed challenges. The first is addressing key challenges emanating primarily from within Africa. These include poor governance, weak regulatory frameworks, insecurity, and economic mismanagement. The second challenge encompasses external interference, external dependencies, and weak and uncoordinated counterreactions.

Addressing these challenges requires a carefully calibrated rethinking of the purpose of African integration while crafting better organising principles for integration. This will require (1) recovering African sovereignties from world powers, (2) strengthening the capacity of African Union member states to defend their sovereignties, and (3) undertaking a massive continental investment in the economic, military, and political agency of African Union member states.

Unfortunately, African integration policy architects have mainly been preoccupied with inward-looking policy issues. Take, for instance, the African Common Policy on Defence and Security. This policy is more preoccupied with demilitarising African societies than with how Africa can build its security and defence capabilities to combat external threats. Additionally, economic policies are currently more about fair, accessible, and open African markets than about promoting African companies as global actors and safeguarding them against the predatory practices of multinational corporations. Policies regarding governance are concerned with appropriating liberal values more than they are with identifying, refining, and promoting African governance systems.

Ultimately, in today’s global context, integrating Africa requires careful calibrations. For instance, while African integration cannot occur without “taming” and pooling together certain aspects of national sovereignty—such as governance, economy, and defence—achieving effective integration will require increased investment by the African Union in member states’ governance, foreign policies, defence and security, energy, and economies. Furthermore, although integrating Africa will increase interdependence and break down physical and regulatory barriers, integration should not weaken African Union member states as sources of sovereignty.

Crafting these complex balancing acts while addressing regional and continental integration challenges will require an enormous investment of time and resources in strategic analysis, as well as cost and benefit assessments, to balance national, bilateral, regional, and international interests. Many countries and actors in Africa do not have the resources, time, or space to conduct the complex strategic analysis required to inform decision making and influence action.

IAAS’ team comprises African experts possessing unique insights and advanced proficiency in engaging with the African Union on matters of governance, peace, security, geo-economics, and geopolitics. As a result, they are exceptionally well-equipped to advise both African Union member states and organisations on strategies for fostering national-level development, protecting the sovereignty of African nations, bolstering the independence of African Union member states, advocating for the national interests of these states, and equipping them to compete effectively in a world defined by fierce geopolitical competition.

To accomplish this, IAAS services will enable African Union member states and African organisations to:

• Identify and interact with the critical strategic issues, interests, and actors informing and influencing the purpose of African integration.
• Conduct power-play analysis of the position, relative power standing, and critical interests of actors engaged in a specific integration issue.
• Develop and implement strategies for effective engagement with the African integration process.
• Undertake cost-benefit analysis to advise on the strengths and weaknesses of joining or not joining continental integration initiatives.