Research project
Training for Peace 2025 - 2028 (TfP)
Events
The Training for Peace Programme (TfP Programme) is an international programme that contributes towards capacity building within the broader ambit of peace operations in Africa. Since 1995, the programme has worked, through civil society institutions, to strengthen civilian and police capacity for United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) peace operations. With its focus on training, rostering, policy support and applied research, the TfP Programme has contributed actively to placing the multi-dimensional aspects of peacekeeping on the agenda, including issues related to the protection of civilians, youth, peace and security and women, peace and security.
In its new phase (2025-2028), the TfP will continue working to support and strengthen the capacity of the African Union Commission (AUC) — and other key actors including RECs/RMs, Member States, and CSOs — to proactively determine, track, and respond to security threats and conflicts through knowledge-based policies and field-informed initiatives.
The TfP consists of an international network of partners including the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
TfP’s key thematic areas for the 2025-2028 phase include:
- Operationalising of PSO doctrines and the African Standby Force (ASF);
- Mainstreaming and implementing WPS and YPS agendas;
- P/CVE and Counterterrorism;
- Climate Peace and Security;
- Defence and Security Governance;
- Transitional justice, democracy, human rights, and political transitions;
- Implementation and learning from peace agreements;
- Strengthened knowledge management systems; and
- Expanded engagement with RECs/RMs, CSOs, and Member States.
Within the programme NUPI’s main responsibility is research and policy development. NUPI’s research seeks to contribute to the development of doctrine for peace support operations (PSOs), knowledge building and lessons learned from African PSOs, civilian and police know-how, the financing and support of African PSOs and ongoing monitoring and analysis of the implementation and progress of the African Peace and Security Architecture.
NUPI’s activities in the programme will also prioritise efforts to integrate gender and youth perspectives in the analytical work, policy support and capacity development as a cross-cutting issue.
To learn more about the programme, visit the programme's main home page. For an overview of NUPI's events, news and publications related to the TfP programme, please visit TfP's programme page here at NUPI.no.
The TfP programme is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Project Manager
Participants
Articles
New publications
The Evolution of African Armies: From Indigenous and Colonial Forces to Modern Military Forces
This book investigates how African armies in post-conflict societies are evolving and adapting to new and emerging threats. In recent years, multiple extremely complex armed conflicts have contributed to chronic instability and vulnerabilities in several African states and regions. This book investigates several key case studies to assess the development, deployment and use of African armies in different conflict environments. In particular, the book examines how African states have utilised bilateral partnerships, the deployment to international peacekeeping operations and military training to enhance security and military capacities as a way to tackle both emerging and existing threats at home. Ultimately, the book questions our past and current knowledge of African armies, arguing that current trends in their evolution suggest we need to rethink our understanding, given the vast tasks they are deployed to handle. As a result, the book seeks to explore ways in which we can invest in African armies that positively contribute to development and sustainable peace across the continent. Bringing together valuable empirical insights and critical conversations on the evolution of modern African armies, this book will be an important read for international and national policy actors, and for researchers working on African politics, conflict, security, peacekeeping, international relations, and sustainable development.
Neglecting Local Realities: the Negative Impact of Protection in Abyei
The United Nations Security Council created the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (unisfa) in June 2011 to monitor the ceasefire and the demilitarisation of Abyei. The deployment of unisfa has led scholars to argue that unisfa’s protection of civilian operations and predicted favourable troop-to-population ratios have contributed to its noticeable success. However, the dynamics in Abyei have changed over the last few years, with an increase in inter and intra-communal violence. This has acclimated the mission being faced with new forms of criminality, violence and actor dynamics—such as the use of local and neighbouring militia for hire. Drawing on an interpretivist analysis of data generated from the single case study of unisfa, the paper argues that unisfa’s inability to use force at the start to protect has led the mission over time to entrench itself further inwardly, leading to patterns of passive response(s) to protection matters. As a result, unisfa implementation of Protection of Civilians (poc), neglects localisation realities producing further negative effects. The overreliance on the two-dimensional lens inhibits the mission’s ability to tactical evaluate, pivot and redeploy diverse tools that can support a response to protection issues. Consequently, unisfa’s failure to adapt to an evolving conflict environment allows dissatisfied communities to take matters into their own hands, resulting in further loss of trust in the mission.
Consolidating African-led Peacebuilding Efforts
While the United Nations (UN) holds the primary responsibility for securing global peace, it increasingly emphasises the importance of partnerships with regional organisations. In practice, this means the UN often engages only once peace has been brokered. The wider international community looks to leading regional organisations, such as the African Union (AU) in the case of Africa, to take the lead in peacebuilding. As such, the AU has emerged as a key actor — mobilising international support for peacebuilding across the continent, while also driving the development of significant localised initiatives and anchoring these in state institutions towards advancing peace and stability. However, in persistent, violent conflicts, peacebuilding efforts often take a backseat. Stabilisation frequently takes centre stage, while policymakers focus on immediate humanitarian priorities and the prevention of further violence. As a result, peacebuilding in Africa is rarely uniform across states. It is often concentrated in capitals and urban areas, producing long-term effects that may exacerbate tensions and inadvertently reinforce the very disparities that initially sparked conflict. Peacebuilding is not a neutral process. It can maintain and entrench existing social structures, framing democracy as the sole driver of change while overlooking peacebuilding as a space of political contestation, negotiation and tension, and one that confers or denies legitimacy. This study examines African-led peacebuilding efforts that seek to address conflicts’ structural contradictions and root causes. It calls for a rethink of regional organisations’ approaches to peacebuilding in complex stabilisation environments, advocating for a more adaptive regional peacebuilding strategy that acknowledges its deep interlinkages with stabilisation.
Converging Global Norms and Institutional Policies with Bottom-Up Approaches to the Protection of Civilians
The participation of the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) in the protection of civilians (PoC) has shown that their respective experiences have evolved and helped to support the ideals of PoC. PoC is considered a key indicator to the success of the UN mission, and the concept has grown in relevance across activities of the UN. Equally, over the last two decades, the AU Peace and Security Council has increasingly mandated and deployed Peace Support Operations (psos) to prevent and respond to human security threats and mass atrocities on the African continent. However, the existence of Ad hoc Security Initiatives (asis) and Enterprise Security Arrangements (esas) that are swifter at deploying to areas of insecurity allows affected states to use forces within and across their borders to attempt to deal rapidly with protection concerns. The use of asis and esas for protection concerns differs from large UN and AU operations, which rely on a clear mandate, policy, guidance, and principles developed from built-up experience. The article explores the nature and use of asis and esas and asks whether these new operations can provide better civilian protection outcomes. It explores how asis and esas can adopt PoC guidelines from the AU to allow for better protection and PoC in the specific environments where asis and esas operate. Finally, the article proposes ways asis and esas can integrate the AU PoC policy into their operations.
Confronting escalating threats: adapting stabilisation for Africa’s 21st century security challenges
This article explores the understanding and implementation of stabilisation and Climate, Peace and Security (CPS) across Africa.
Climate Security, Natural Resource Conflict, & Community Resilience in the Lake Chad Basin: A Review of the Literature
The Lake Chad Basin is experiencing severe climate change impacts—including declining rainfall, rising temperatures, droughts, flooding, and shrinking water bodies—that are accelerating livelihood insecurity and ecological collapse. These environmental stresses are acting as threat multipliers, heightening competition over land, water, and fisheries, and intensifying intercommunal violence and displacement across Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. Climate-driven livelihood pressures intersect with structural fragility, contributing to recruitment into violent extremist groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP, while conflict dynamics further undermine coping capacities and social cohesion. A range of responses is underway, led by regional bodies (LCBC), national governments, international partners (UNDP, GEF, World Bank), and local communities, focusing on adaptation, ecosystem restoration, natural resource governance, and resilience-building. However, gaps remain in institutional capacity, climate-security governance, and inclusion of vulnerable groups—particularly women—whose adaptive options are constrained. Strengthening resilience will require integrated climate-security strategies, robust early-warning systems, empowered local institutions, and investments in sustainable livelihoods.
The Gambia Has Decided: A model for intervention, or a missed opportunity?
Recent years have seen increased instances of democratic backsliding across West Africa, particularly through military coups. This Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in collaboration with the African Union (AU), can work proactively together to strengthen democratisation processes. Against this backdrop, this report presents an in-depth case study on The Gambia. In particular, it evaluates the AU- and ECOWAS-led interventions that followed the country’s elections in 2016. In the course of its assessment, the study articulates insights for Africa-led interventions. These draw on an array of tools, including mediation, political missions and military pressure. Another key focus of the report is the changing nature of partnerships between the AU and regional economic communities (RECs) as part of their responses to political crises. This includes examining the extent to which the AU and ECOWAS coordinated efforts to address the constitutional crisis that followed the disputed outcome of the December 2016 polls. The study culminates in a series of key findings. Among these is that the principle of subsidiarity remains ambiguously defined; that coordination between the AU and ECOWAS was uneven and at times duplicative; and that national ownership in The Gambia was insufficiently embedded in the reform process. This suggests that while ECOWAS´ visible and robust intervention was decisive in restoring constitutional order, the AU´s more technical engagement lacked visibility and sustainability. Both actors struggled to align their support in a coherent and mutually reinforcing manner. Over time, this served to reduce how both organisations were able to act as continuous and legitimate actors in the country. These findings offer guidance on how the AU and RECs could partner more effectively to address crises in Africa. Clarifying subsidiarity is a key step. While the term is widely used by the AU and RECs, the key questions of subsidiarity — such as the political dimensions it entails; and how the AU and ECOWAS could jointly address a lack of political will at the member state level — remain unresolved. Other areas of guidance defined in the report include strengthening joint planning and communication; and ensuring that balanced attention is given not only to immediate security concerns, but also longterm governance reform. The study concludes that without deeper institutionalised coordination mechanisms and stronger political will from both continental and national actors, the sustainability of such interventions will remain limited.
The Effectiveness of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM)
The report assesses the effectiveness of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM), deployed in 2021 to counter the ASWJ insurgency in Cabo Delgado. SAMIM helped reduce insurgent capacity and restore some state presence, but it struggled with mismatched resources, limited host-nation cooperation, and parallel Rwandan operations. The mission never achieved key tasks such as sustained territorial stabilisation, air and maritime support, or long-term capacity-building of Mozambican forces. Political constraints and operational gaps ultimately led to its withdrawal in mid-2024, despite persistent insecurity.
Safeguarding the WPS Agenda across Africa amid a Changing Global Order
Over the past 25 years, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda has gained increasing prominence at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). UNSC engagement has focused primarily on the protection of women and girls – rather than on prevention or effective participation. Further, implementation of the agenda has been inconsistent and uneven across mandates. More recently, geopolitical tensions, a rise in authoritarian politics and escalating anti-feminist sentiment have further undermined the WPS agenda – often subordinating it to domestic political dynamics. This policy brief examines the state of the WPS agenda against a backdrop of dwindling donor funding and shifting global priorities. It reflects on key achievements by local women’s networks across Africa and considers how gains may be sustained and the agenda advanced amid new political and financial constraints. It argues that promoting the WPS agenda in an increasingly volatile political order requires a multifaceted approach that addresses the challenges posed by global conflict, inequality and authoritarian resurgence. This includes strengthening existing frameworks, expanding the scope of the agenda to address a broader range of issues and ensuring that women’s voices are meaningfully included in decision-making related to peace and security.
The Role of Ad Hoc Security Initiatives and Enterprise Security Arrangements in the Protection of Civilians in Africa
African-led ad hoc security initiatives (ASIs) and enterprise security arrangements (ESAs) provide flexible, rapid responses to complex threats but remain heavily militarized, weakly integrated into AU frameworks, and poorly aligned with protection of civilians (POC) standards. Their focus on counterinsurgency, reliance on external support, and lack of civilian components often undermine community trust and broader peace processes. While some positive practices have emerged—such as civil-military cooperation in the MNJTF and Rwanda’s outreach in Mozambique—these remain inconsistent. Without systematic integration of AU POC policies, civilian structures, and political strategies, ASIs and ESAs will struggle to deliver sustainable protection outcomes.