Why Ghana must use its 2027 leadership to reset the African Union

Ghana’s assumption of the African Union’s leadership in 2027 comes at a defining moment. It arrives after nearly a decade of drift from the ambitious mission that gave birth to the continental body.

 When African leaders replaced the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 2001, it represented far more than an institutional change. It embodied a conviction that Africa could shape its own future and speak with a stronger collective voice in an increasingly competitive international system. That ambition would eventually find expression in Agenda 2063, the AU’s long-term blueprint for “The Africa We Want.”

The first decade of the AU was defined by extraordinary intellectual and political energy. It produced an impressive array of norms, institutions, and policy frameworks that sought to place Africa at the centre of its own development and security agenda.

The African Peace and Security Architecture, the Common African Defence and Security Policy, common positions on major global issues, new partnerships with global actors, the African Peer Review Mechanism, and continental governance and development frameworks all reflected a conviction that Africa’s challenges demanded bold African leadership and African solutions.

This success was not accidental. It was driven by a coalition of visionary African leaders who thought beyond the boundaries of their own states. Leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Olusegun Obasanjo, Thabo Mbeki, and Meles Zenawi understood that no African country, regardless of its size or wealth, could prosper alone in an international system increasingly organized around major power blocs. Their commitment to continental cooperation gave the AU its momentum and strategic direction.

But that elite coalition has largely disappeared. With the departure of these leaders from the political stage, the intellectual and political energy that sustained the AU has gradually diminished.

The organization increasingly risks becoming a cautious observer rather than a proactive driver of African affairs.

The consequences are visible. Too often, the AU appears reactive rather than strategic. It responds to crises instead of shaping events. Decisions made by summit after summit remain unimplemented. In his major farewell address, outgoing AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat lamented that more than 90 percent of the decisions adopted by the AU during his tenure were never implemented.

This was a damning indictment of the organization’s effectiveness and a stark reminder of the widening gap between continental ambition and institutional delivery. Agenda 2063 generated enormous optimism, but it has struggled to convert that initial momentum into sustained political commitment and measurable progress.

This shift is reflected not only in the behaviour of member states but also within the institution itself. The first generation of AU officials viewed the organization as a mission. Commissioners and bureaucrats worked with a sense of continental purpose that often transcended ordinary public service.

Increasingly, however, employment at the AU is being seen simply as another diplomatic posting or another international career opportunity rather than a calling to advance Africa’s collective interests.

This is precisely why the AU urgently needs a reset. And Ghana’s tenure as the chair of the AU in 2027 presents a timely and perhaps rare opportunity to provide it. President John Dramani Mahama’s domestic reset agenda in Ghana has resonated with many not simply because it promises new policies, but because it seeks to reshape the underlying mindset that has too often constrained effective governance.

At its core, the reset is an attempt to move Ghanaians away from a culture of passing the buck, blame-shifting, endless complaining, lack of care for public goods, poor work ethic, short-termism, and business-as-usual thinking towards an ethos of personal responsibility, a can-do attitude, accountability, institutional effectiveness, excellence in public service, innovation, and long-term national transformation.

It is a call to replace a mindset of excuses with one of ownership, to shift from cynicism to optimism, from dependency to initiative, and from merely complaining about problems to solving them.

Critics may debate the pace at which tangible results are emerging from the Ghana reset agenda, but few would deny that it has succeeded in reframing the national conversation. It has renewed public debate about governance, institutional renewal, leadership, and accountability, while challenging entrenched assumptions about how public institutions should function and whom they are ultimately meant to serve.

It is precisely this shift in mindset that the AU now requires if it is to remain relevant and effective in addressing the continent’s increasingly complex challenges.

A reset should begin with Ghana using its 2027 leadership of the AU to forge a new coalition of forward-looking African leaders committed to thinking beyond narrow national interests. Africa’s future cannot be secured through fragmented national responses to common continental challenges.

The AU must once again become the continent’s strategic brain trust, an institution where African leaders collectively anticipate change, prepare for the future, and act before crises force their hand.

As the premier body for a continent without nuclear deterrence and with limited influence over the strategic calculations of major powers, the AU cannot afford to stand still while the international system undergoes profound transformation. Great power competition is intensifying.

Military spending is rising dramatically. Nuclear modernization programmes are accelerating. The multilateral institutions that have historically offered African and other smaller states a measure of protection are under growing strain. The emerging international order is becoming more transactional, competitive, and power-driven.

In this environment, the AU afford the luxury of “wait and see” attitude. Ghana should use its leadership to help the AU prepare African states and citizens for the strategic consequences of these shifts, while positioning the Union to defend Africa’s long-term interests.

This demands a coherent continental foreign policy and external action strategy that confronts the unraveling international order and positions Africa to navigate as well as shape the defining challenges of our time, from nuclear war prevention and cybersecurity to artificial intelligence and the governance of emerging and disruptive technologies. The continent should champion efforts to strengthen global commitments against the first use of nuclear weapons while advocating new multilateral rules that reduce the risk of Africa becoming a testing ground, battlefield, or proxy theatre for the advanced weapons systems into which major powers are investing billions of dollars.

Ghana should use its 2027 leadership to position the AU not merely as a participant in the emerging international order, but as an active architect of the rules, norms, and institutions that will shape it.

AU reset must also fundamentally transform the AU’s approach to governance. Recent Afrobarometer surveys reveal a sobering reality: while Africans remain firmly committed to democracy, growing numbers, especially young people, would accept military intervention if elected governments continue to fail in delivering security, jobs, quality public services, and opportunity. This should alarm every African leader. Democratic legitimacy today depends not only on winning elections but on governing effectively.

The AU must therefore champion a truly people-centred Union, one built on accountable governance at every level, competent and responsive public institutions, the faithful implementation of continental decisions, and meaningful citizen participation. Ghana can use its position to help the AU become an institution that ordinary Africans recognise as advancing and protecting their everyday aspirations.

The founders of the AU understood a simple truth that in a world organised around power and competing interests, Africa would either stand together or remain vulnerable apart. Today, that lesson is more relevant than ever. Ghana’s leadership offers an opportunity not merely to manage the AU but to restore its founding spirit. The task before Ghana is not to reinvent the AU but to rekindle the vision that created it.

By Professor Thomas Kwasi Tieku

The writer is currently a Carnegie-Diasporan Scholar at the University of Ghana, an Associate Research Fellow at the United Nations University and Professor of Politics at King’s University in Canada

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