Theme Summary

BACKGROUND

The metaphor There are multiple routes to the market provides a distinctly African epistemological frame for re‑imagining peace as a dynamic, multidimensional destination accessible through diverse pathways. The market functions as a metaphor for peace: a condition that encompasses spatial, temporal, physical, and psychological dimensions. The organisation and spatial logic of traditional African markets show that access rarely follows a single route. If peace is the destination, this metaphor suggests the continent offers multiple pathways to sustainable peace. The market also serves as a metaphor for a place where insights, methods, experience, and solutions from Africa’s peace and security stakeholders intersect through frank, relevant, and candid dialogue.

The 12th edition of the Tana High‑Level Forum foregrounds economic sovereignty and geopolitical transformation as interconnected routes toward sustainable peace. Africa’s ability to govern resources, finance development, regulate digital transformation, strengthen institutions, and shape regional integration directly affects the continent’s capacity to prevent conflict, build legitimacy, and pursue its own security priorities. These raise numerous geoeconomic and geopolitical questions that the 12th edition of the Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa seeks to address.

Economic sovereignty is the freedom and ability to exercise agency, legitimacy, and institutional autonomy within an interconnected global order. This raises questions about Africa’s ability to define and pursue its own economic priorities, mobilise and govern its resources, shape the terms of its participation in the global economy, and protect the policy space required for inclusive development and durable peace. Deficiencies in these respects have had direct, traceable implications for peace and security. 

Debates on economic sovereignty expose enduring constraints on Africa’s ability to extract, process, trade, and leverage its resources for development. External control over value chains, limited policy autonomy, debt dependence, and structural dependence in global trade and finance reproduce historical patterns of exploitation. These dynamics are not only economic concerns; they also shape the structural drivers of conflict by affecting employment, state legitimacy, social welfare, resource competition, and governments’ capacity to deliver public goods. The Forum should therefore treat economic policy and peace policy as mutually reinforcing fields rather than separate agendas.

Geopolitical transformation further complicates this landscape. As global power rivalries intensify, Africa faces opportunities for investment and security partnerships but also risks of fragmentation and new forms of dependency. Resource politics (historically central to conflict) now extend into the digital domain. Africa’s digital transformation, while promising integration and innovation, is undermined by a persistent digital divide that reinforces inequalities and heightens the risk of conflict. At the same time, digital technologies reshape conflict dynamics through disinformation, cyber threats, and emerging forms of digital imperialism, even as they offer tools for peacebuilding and resilience.

These challenges place renewed emphasis on African institutions’ role. Despite normative and operational advances, gaps in financing, coordination, and readiness persist. Strengthening institutional autonomy, sustainable security financing, and adaptive capacities is essential to navigate pressures from economic sovereignty and geopolitical shifts. Ultimately, Africa’s pursuit of peace requires coherent regional integration, effective management of informal and illicit economies, and resilient institutions capable of shaping a sovereign and peaceful continental order.

Download the full Tana 2026 Theme Summary documents: Theme Summary