African Union’s new chair has a long list of tough tasks – what it will take to get them done

Following seven rounds of balloting, 60-year-old diplomat Mahmoud Ali Youssouf was elected the sixth chair of the African Union Commission in February 2025. Politics professor Ulf Engel, who is the editor of the Yearbook on the African Union, explains the role and its challenges.

What’s the new AU Commission chair’s background?

Youssouf is a seasoned diplomat from Djibouti. He is the longest serving minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation of his country (2005-2025), and has also served as chair of the Council of Ministers of the Arab League (2007, 2017) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (2012).

What’s the job?

It involves navigating the different levels of commitments of AU member states, promoting the pan-African agenda on the global stage and developing the professionalisation of the commission.

The chair is the chief executive officer and legal representative of the African Union as well as the accounting officer of the AU Commission.

They are directly responsible to the AU executive council. The chair is elected by the assembly for a four-year term, renewable once.

Their functions include:

• chairing all meetings and deliberations of the AU Commission

• keeping records of the deliberations of the AU Assembly, the executive council and the permanent representatives council

• preparing the AU budget

• acting as a depository of all AU treaties and other legal instruments

• consulting and coordinating with the governments of member states and the regional economic communities on the activities of the AU.

In the transition phase from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to the AU (1999–2002), the office of the chair was still conceived as the “head of a secretariat”. But with the expansion of the African Union Commission’s staff from roughly 600 in the early 1990s to now well over 1,700 and the growing number of substantive tasks, this concept has evolved.

The AU Commission has developed into the engine room of the pan-African project.

Building on the three terms of the Tanzanian OAU secretary-general Salim Ahmed Salim (1989–2001), the commission has developed strong agency.

On many political issues it has become the source for drafting legal and political documents.

Through the chair, the commission coordinates relations with the regional economic communities. An example is in the field of early warning and conflict prevention.

An example of the political guidance and leadership the chair can exercise is the 1999 report on “The Fundamental Changes Taking Place in the World and their Implications for Africa: Proposals for an African Response”.

This had strong implications for the development of the continental body’s economic and security policies.

It also had an impact on the 2011 report on “Current Challenges to Peace and Security on the Continent”. The report discussed the consequences of the public uprisings in northern Africa (the so-called Arab Spring).

The 2022 report on “Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Africa” was drafted in response to the recent wave of coups d’état, especially in west Africa.

A prominent example of proactive chairpersonship is the development of the AU’s Agenda 2063 under the leadership of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (South Africa, 2012–2017). This was an ambitious programme to steer the AU for the next 50 years after its 50th anniversary in 2013.

What are the biggest challenges?

The AU Commission chair’s main challenges include renewing member states’ commitment to the institution’s shared values amid a democratic recession.

The new chair will have to deal with the decline in the quality of democracy across the continent.

He will also have to deal with many member states that constantly violate AU decisions and communiqués on unconstitutional changes of government, as highlighted by the outgoing chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat (Chad), in a speech celebrating the 20th anniversary of the AU Peace and Security Council on 25 May 2024.

The chair needs to finalise AU policy on the division of labour with the regional economic communities. In many policy fields this division is still unsystematic.

Youssouf will have to increase the number of common African positions on key global challenges, increase ownership of positions by member states and lead the debate on defining clear obligations for member states.

The most prominent common African position is the 2005 Ezulweni Consensus on the reform of the UN security council. It called for two permanent seats and five non-permanent seats for Africa.

But more could be done to increase the African voice in the various international negotiation forums.

The chair also needs to adopt a more systematic approach to the AU’s strategic partnerships with multilateral and bilateral players. For example, the AU became a member of the G20 in September 2024. Monitoring of strategic partnerships must be developed, and there should be clear guidelines which define African interests beyond funding issues.

But the biggest task is to complete the financial and institutional reform of the AU that began in 2016/2017. This should include reducing its heavy financial dependence on international partners. Currently an estimated 58% of the budget comes from these partners, slightly down from last year’s 61%.

The new chair needs to make the AU Commission more efficient and relevant for the African people. The lack of domestication of AU decisions by member states remains a huge challenge for Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.

Are any breakthroughs possible?

G20 meetings in South Africa offer an opportunity to show how AU membership of this body can help address Africa’s concerns and rally AU member states behind a common agenda. There were meetings of G20 ministers of foreign affairs and finance in February, and heads of state and government will meet in November 2025.

In his electoral campaign, Youssouf pledged to “defend Africa’s fair representation in international institutions and to strengthen its role in global forums”.

He said Africa “must assert itself as an influential player in global policy discussion, advancing its economic and developmental interests”.

With the new government in the US this certainly will become an uphill struggle. This is especially so giveng the pace with which the US president Donald Trump’s administration is dismantling established multilateral alliances, withdrawing from parts of the United Nations, and appears to be siding with Russia.