Togo is gradually putting in place a peace and security architecture through the Lome Peace and Security Forum, LPSF. Though not much noise is being made about it, the Forum is providing the opportunity for leaders, policy makers and young people to discuss Africa’s much needed peace. The first Forum took place in 2023, and the second from October 11-12, 2025, where the main take-home echoed the need for Africa to start looking within to dialogue and build peace.

What made this year’s Forum remarkable was the presence of the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, who were able to interact with former president of the regional grouping, ECOWAS, Mohammed Ibn Chambas on the future of the three countries’ relationship with the regional body.
Though Mali’s foreign minister, Abdoulaye Diop, said the Alliance of the Sahel States (AES) will not return to the regional grouping, he made a point that they are willing to collaborate with the people of West Africa. This was the first time that the three countries had attended any meeting in the region and interacted openly on whether they would return to ECOWAS. This makes the LPSF a very great platform that can lead dialogue and peace not only in the West Africa region, but in Africa as a whole.

The voices at the Forum show that the LPSF is shining light on the way to go in building peace to protect a continent that is spending money on issues that do not bring development. The special representative of the secretary general of the UN for West Africa and the Sahel, Leonardo Santos Simão sounded the alarm that defence spending to resolve the Sahelian crisis is rising and projected to be about $3.2 billion in the central Sahel by the end of 2025. In addition, there is also the human cost of an estimated millions of people being displaced in the community, resulting in the closure of 14,000 schools and more than 1,300 children being recruited by the armed groups to fight.

Simão said the situation “reflects the urgency of the threat, but it also reminds us of the need to balance security with investment in health, education and climate resilience,” adding that, “every child returning to school, every community rebuilt is a victory for peace.”
He said gold and other mineral resources in many parts of West Africa are now targets for violent groups, criminal networks, and global actors. In addition, climate change has intensified farmer-herder clashes, displacement, and poverty. With peace in the region, these security threats will be outdated.

It must be noted that problems present a chance for Africa to be innovative through climate-smart agriculture, water diplomacy and green infrastructure, he said, adding that regional mechanisms such as the multinational joint task force and the Accra Initiative, which were attempts to build peace in the past have faced difficulties.

It was against this background that Togo’s President of the Executive Council, Faure Gnassingbe asked African leaders not to think of peace as an abstract or idealistic aspiration, but as a strategic project because the world is living in a time of great upheavals.

President Gnassingbe cautioned that, “geopolitical rivalries are flaring up again, conflicts are multiplying, and threats are evolving. Everywhere, the multilateral mechanisms that once underpinned much of international security are weakening.”

He said Africans must be the main actors of the continent’s security, adding that, “too often, our continent has been treated as a stage for external rivalries. Our problems have been analysed from foreign capitals, and solutions have been decided and imposed from other venues. But the world is changing — and that model is outdated.”

President Gnassingbe said the strategy for Africans to decide on Africa’s peace architecture is not a desire for isolation, but rather an attempt “to firmly exercise our ability to define our own priorities, instruments, and alliances.”

“Lasting peace is built through local cohesion because peace cannot be decreed — it must be built. And it is built through inclusion and social justice. Many of the conflicts we face often stem from territorial inequalities, social frustrations, or political exclusion,” President Gnassingbe said.

He said, “when a community feels forgotten, marginalised, or scorned, instability is never far behind. A lasting response lies in strengthening local bonds — in citizen participation, community dialogue, and national reconciliation.”

Angola’s minister for foreign affairs, Tete Antonio said, the threats to peace and stability on the continent remain multiple and interconnected. “Armed conflicts, terrorism and violent extremism, transnational crime, governance challenges, climate change, and food insecurity, ethnic or religious rivalries, as well as dissatisfaction with social and economic difficulties combined with limited employment prospects, are among the factors driving youth to sometimes turn to armed and extremist groups,” Antonio said.
He said this vulnerability, combined with insufficient state presence in some regions, also facilitates the illegal exploitation and mismanagement of natural resources, perpetuating vicious cycles of poverty and instability in certain conditions.

Antonio said Angola is committed to promoting political dialogue, reconciliation, and cross-border cooperation while supporting regional efforts for stabilisation, development, and integration.
According to him, “sustainable peace necessarily involves economic and social development,” adding that, “no security strategy can thrive if the population continues to live in poverty or precariousness in certain respects.”
When peace and security are restored on the continent, Antonio is of the view that transformation of the African agricultural sector, which is especially important, will be possible to help in the continent’s development efforts. He based this on the fact that, and Africa has over 60 percent of the world’s arable land, favourable natural conditions and abundance of water, therefore the continent must urgently develop its agricultural system to feed its population, ensure food security, renovate rural development, create jobs for youth and women, and achieve food self-sufficiency.

He identified the root causes of African conflicts, as inequality, marginalisation, and certain difficulties in governance and food security, saying these “must lead us to strengthen initiatives to promote good governance, transparency, and social justice while investing massively, especially in youth education, training, and entrepreneurship.

He said the African youth, who represent more than half of the continent’s population, must be seen as strategic actors for lasting peace and not as passive spectators.

Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai, looking back, said, his country “stands today as living proof that peace is possible when a nation chooses dialogue over division and forgiveness over vengeance,” adding that, “experience shows that the road to peace begins with justice, inclusion, and local ownership.”
He said “accountability strengthens peace, not weakens it. We must end national amnesia and ensure that future generations remember the cost of violence and the value of peace.”

It is worth noting that, Togo’s minister of foreign affairs, Robert Dussey, said his country is serving as a major diplomatic crossroads in the service of peace in Africa, stating, this is a commitment that, “we as a people, in a regrettable context of resurgence, will embrace with a desire to carry the message of the ideal,” adding that, “peace remains essential, indeed indispensable.”

For this reason, he said Togo is working for peace with the conviction that “dialogue remains the surest path to stability. This conviction inspires the approach of thinking together, acting together, and building peace together, in a spirit of shared responsibility and strengthened cooperation.”

Before this year’s forum, the previous one was described as an “unprecedented gathering” and it had a central theme, “ How to strengthen political transitions towards democratic governance in Africa.” Dussey explained that the forum followed the “the principles of the African Palaver Tree, a traditional space dedicated to inclusive social dialogue where every community member has the right to speak.”

He said the LPSF transcended the conventional boundaries of discourse by fostering cross-sectoral responses to the overarching global question: how can political transitions towards democratic governance be fortified in Africa? At the end of that forum, participants boldly asserted their positions, engaging in a dialogue that not only identified weaknesses and gaps in current approaches but, more importantly, focused on innovative solutions and areas for improvement.

Hopefully, the LPSF initiative will take root to see the end of conflicts in Africa. After all, it is always said that it is better to talk than engage in conflict. The people of Africa have seen so many wars that have not helped in promoting any development, rather they have kept the continent backward. Thus, African leaders should be looking at what the LPSF can do and help to make it grow.

We are watching to see how our leaders will respond to this great initiative!