The year 2026 was placed under a theme that touches on the essentials: “Ensure sustainable availability of water and safe sanitation systems to achieve the goals of Agenda 2063.” This choice is revealing. Water and sanitation are not only sectoral policies: they are determinants of public health, productivity, schooling, food security, social stability and, ultimately, sovereignty. By posing this theme, the African Union (AU) recalls that Agenda 2063 – “The Africa we want” – is not a slogan; it is a transformation trajectory that demands measurable results.
In this context, taking stock of recent AU presidencies is neither an exercise in nostalgia nor a ritual of self-satisfaction. It is an obligation of accountability. What was the purpose of the rotating presidency? What did it unlock? Which achievements are consolidated, which remain fragile? On this point, one sequence deserves particular attention: the presidency of Macky Sall (February 2022-February 2023), which took place at a time when the war in Ukraine was brutally reconfiguring the world’s food, energy and diplomatic balances.
One fact stands out: Africa can no longer remain on the periphery of places where debt, development financing, energy transition, trade rules and food security are decided. This is precisely the meaning of the plea made at the highest level for the AU to be represented at the G20 – an important clarification, because the achievements do concern the G20.
On September 20, 2022, from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, Macky Sall made an explicit request, on behalf of the AU – “ I reiterate our demand that the African Union obtain a seat at the G20” – so that Africa is finally represented where decisions that directly concern it are made. This request is not a platform effect: it is part of an institutional repositioning strategy, based on a simple principle – no legitimate global governance without structured African representation.
The culmination will come on September 9, 2023, during the G20 summit in New Delhi, when the African Union is officially admitted as a permanent member, at the same rank as the European Union as a regional bloc. It would be intellectually dishonest to attribute this decision to a single actor; it results from a chain of supports and convergences, consolidated over the course of presidencies. But it would be just as inaccurate to ignore that the 2022 advocacy helped create the political conditions for this progress: establishing the subject, taking it on publicly and broadening the circle of support.
The diplomacy of pragmatism
The challenge now is to convert this seat into a capacity to influence. Being a member of the G20 does not automatically produce results: it imposes a new discipline – more coordinated African positions, hierarchical priorities, capacity to negotiate technically, and coherence between the continental agenda and regional and national agendas.
The 2022 presidency of the AU took place in a context where millions of African households were suffering, without being responsible, from imported inflation and tension on cereal supplies. The question was not theoretical: it concerned the risk of social crisis, budgetary weakening and political destabilization.
It is in this context that Macky Sall, as president of Senegal and current president of the AU, went to Sochi to meet with President Vladimir Putin. Reuters reports that after the meeting, the Russian leader said he was ready to facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain in order to alleviate a global food crisis particularly hitting Africa. Here again, it is not a question of judging intentions, but of qualifying a method: in a situation of systemic risk, Africa cannot simply comment; it must act, dialogue, obtain clarifications and seek operational solutions.
In the same logic, when Russia and Ukraine signed, under the aegis of Turkey and the United Nations, an agreement aimed at resuming grain exports via the Black Sea, the AU Commission welcomed this agreement. The AU thus affirms a coherent position: preserving essential food and agricultural flows, while calling for multilateral solutions.
Talk to everyone
The expression according to which Macky Sall would be able to speak to everyone has institutional interest only if it refers to a precise capacity: to maintain channels of dialogue with interlocutors with divergent interests, without renouncing African interests, nor allowing oneself to be locked into bloc logics.
This doctrine is explained in his speech of September 20, 2022: “Africa does not want to be the breeding ground for a new cold war”; it wants to be “a center of stability and opportunities open to all its partners”, on a mutually beneficial basis. It could hardly be clearer: this is an active non-alignment, based on cooperation, the diversification of partnerships and the search for results.
Talking to everyone, in this context, is not ambiguity. It is, on the contrary, the capacity to assume an autonomous African voice, understandable by all and oriented towards tangible objectives: food security, sustainable financing, access to energy, just transition, peace and stability. This posture is all the more useful as the international order becomes polarized, as sanctions, trade restrictions and technological rivalries produce collateral effects, and as Africa refuses to be reduced to the role of a competition ground.
The 2026 theme on water and sanitation calls for a change of scale: investments, governance, cross-border cooperation, climate resilience and monitoring mechanisms. But it also calls for financing diplomacy: access to capital, better risk assessment, adapted instruments and coordination between the continental agenda and international financial institutions. From this point of view, the entry of the AU into the G20 constitutes a lever: provided it is used methodically.
“We must unite now or perish”
In this effort, a compass from African intellectual history remains relevant. Kwame Nkrumah warned: “We must unite now or perish” – Unity as a condition of political, economic and strategic survival. Amilcar Cabral, for his part, recalled a requirement for truth and rigor: “Let’s not lie to ourselves, let’s not declare victory too quickly” – not to distort reality, not to be satisfied with proclaimed victories. Wangari Maathai, finally, recalled that transformation also takes place in the concrete and the everyday, “in the little things that citizens do… My little thing is to plant trees” – the sum of tangible actions that shifts a trajectory.
These quotes are not decorative: they invite an AU to be more demanding of itself. The February 2026 summit must reinforce a culture of results: fewer general announcements, more financeable decisions, public indicators, accountability mechanisms – and an increased capacity to negotiate, on behalf of the 55, in the forums where Africa now has a seat but has yet to gain influence.
The results of recent presidencies – and the Macky Sall sequence in particular – show that effective African diplomacy is based on three pillars: clear words, an open and assertive method of dialogue, and an orientation towards operational matters. In February 2026, when the AU places water and sanitation at the top of the agenda, this combination is not an option. It’s a necessity.
*Bernard Chaussegros is an economist and legal expert in audiovisual law
