Building a Pan-African Feminist Peace

This policy brief offers an original and critical intervention into contemporary peace and security debates by centering African feminist perspectives within Pan-Africanism. It challenges dominant militaristic and patriarchal paradigms that have undermined the liberatory potential of Pan-Africanism and perpetuated cycles of violence and insecurity. The brief insists on a feminist reconfiguration of PanAfrican peacebuilding initiatives, positioning feminist knowledge as central to disrupting patriarchal violence and colonial legacies. The research that underpins this brief contributes to rethinking peace and security from a feminist PanAfricanist perspective, advocating for a shift from state-centric, militarised approaches to those that prioritize human security, dignity, and justice for marginalised communities. It foregrounds the critical role of African feminist activism and knowledge production, particularly through frameworks like the Maputo Protocol and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, which have the potential to reshape peace interventions on the continent. The brief draws from African feminist scholarship, decolonial theorising, and illustrative cases to offer a critique of the failures of institutionalised PanAfricanism and provides actionable recommendations that are theoretically robust and practically relevant for policymakers, civil society actors, and regional institutions.