ANCIP

From the 15^th-31^st of October 2025, Hilda Koyier was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, attending the 5^th edition of the Amani Africa training on the AU as well as conducting field interviews in the context of her research project on “The Role of AU Liaison Offices in Conflict Intervention Processes”.

The intensive three-day Amani Africa training session(s) took place from the 16^th to the 18^th of October at the Haile Grand Hotel, Addis, assembling 25 participants of a diverse range of professional backgrounds, creating room for rich networking. The knowledgeable facilitators, with an extensive background and practical experience on matters concerning the African Union, played an instrumental role in equipping the participants with useful information about the practical functioning of different organs of the AU and educating them about how the AU’s decision-making processes unfolds in reality. The highlight of the training, was the mock exercise that enabled each participant to partake in a simulative Peace and Security Council (PSC) decision making process, further providing a concrete understanding of the complexities involved before a PSC decision is made. At the end of the training, each participant received a certificate of completion for the course.

Hilda Koyier maximized the remainder of her stay in Addis to reach out to different AU officials at the PAPS department whose work(s) directly or indirectly covered matters concerning the AU Liaison offices. She successfully conducted semi-structured interviews with AU officials who provided her with relevant insights on the linkage between the practices of the liaison offices and the day-to-day functioning of the Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS) departments at the AU headquarters. In overall, this research process enabled her to gain further understanding on the institutionalization of the liaison offices within the APSA framework and the kind of impact AU institutional reforms have had on the functioning of the liaison offices. During this period, Hilda Koyier also made use of other departments at the AU such as the AU library, the AU archives and the Knowledge Management Centre of the PAPS department through which she accessed outcome documents of the PSC and other relevant AU documents covering the management of conflict on the African continent. Beyond her field research, Hilda Koyier networked with other individuals working in the domain of Peace and security outside the AU, such as those from Amani Africa, who were instrumental in providing different perspectives of how things function in the fast-paced political city of Addis.