The announcement that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf have agreed to establish a U.S.– AUC Strategic Infrastructure and Investment Working Group is, on its face, a welcome development. It signals renewed U.S. interest in engaging Africa through the African Union (AU) rather than relying predominantly on bilateral cooperation. Yet, without governance safeguards underpinned by human rights, the rule of law, and other democratic principles, such an initiative will fail to advance sustainable development and peace as envisaged.
The Jan. 28 agreement suggests economic growth and trade-enabling infrastructure as the foundation of a peaceful and prosperous Africa. While this formulation is practical, it is also reductive. Africa’s core developmental challenge is not simply a lack of infrastructure. It is the failure of governance systems at national and regional levels to create predictable, rules-based, and enabling environments for growth and development. If the Strategic Infrastructure and Investment Working Group is to succeed, the United States must anchor its offerings in rules-based governance. Otherwise, the initiative risks being perceived less as a long-term development partnership and more as a short-term stunt to serve geopolitical interests.
The African Union’s Chronic Absence in U.S.-Africa Initiatives
Engaging Africa through the African Union is commendable, especially if it becomes a consistent approach. In recent years, the AU has been largely absent from some of the most consequential U.S.-Africa initiatives, including in peace and security, which the AU identifies as a core priority.
Recent diplomatic efforts related to the conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda were brokered primarily in Washington, with Qatari facilitation, and with limited visible AU participation. The June 27, 2025, peace agreement was concluded shortly after the AU Permanent Representatives’ Committee meeting, yet the AU was not an active participant in the negotiations. The only reference to the AU concerned the appointment of Angolan President and AU Chair João Lourenço as an African Union facilitator and his inclusion in the Joint Oversight Committee, rather than any substantive institutional role, despite the AU maintaining a representational mission in Washington, D.C. Lourenço and a few African heads of state were in the room for the December 2025 signing of the Washington Accords by President Felix Tshisekedi and President Paul Kagame, but were not significant interlocutors or parties to the agreement. A similar pattern has long appeared in U.S. management of the situation in Western Sahara as the negotiations lead at the U.N. Security Council. This month, the United States reportedly convened Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria and the Polisario Front for talks on Western Sahara without any AU participation. On those and too many other issues, in the last decade, the United States has shaped outcomes with no meaningful AU influence or consultation.
The new Working Group hints at a modification of the existing U.S. preference for a mix of bilateral diplomatic relationships with African states alongside direct engagement with the African Union (AU) as a mere convening intergovernmental institution. That previous approach broadly mirrors the U.S. approach to Asia. In Asia, this model is largely unavoidable: there is no AU-style organization for the entire continent, and the region is defined by deep pluralism in political and power systems — liberal democracies coexisting with monarchies, military-dominated governments, and communist single-party states. As a result, U.S. engagement in Asia is primarily bilateral and minilateral, with regional bodies such as ASEAN serving convening and agenda-setting roles rather than exercising binding authority.
In comparison, U.S.–European Union relations are fundamentally different. The EU is a supranational institution with binding legal authority and meaningful enforcement power over its member states, particularly in trade, competition, and regulatory policy. While political decision-making at the European Council (heads of state and government) level still relies heavily on consensus, the EU’s institutional architecture ensures that once decisions are made, they are implemented and enforced. This gives the EU credibility as a governing actor rather than merely a diplomatic forum.
By contrast, the AU has failed to evolve into a supranational institution, despite the founders’ explicit intentions for both the African Union and its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity. On paper, the AU and its Regional Economic Communities (RECs) possess the structures, legal instruments, and policy frameworks necessary to advance a cohesive continental development strategy. In practice, this potential is undermined by chronic under-implementation of decisions. By some estimates, between 2021 and 2023, only about 7 percent of AU decisions are fully implemented, and this is compounded by the growing institutional attrition of the RECs themselves.
Against this backdrop, the new Working Group should not be viewed simply as a trade and infrastructure opportunity. It should also be used to demand greater responsibility and institutional presence from the AU, particularly now that it is a full member of the G20 and seeks a stronger voice in global governance.
The U.S. Retreat From Human Rights Benchmarking
Equally concerning is the trajectory of the United States itself. In recent engagements with African governments, the Trump administration has scaled back human rights and democracy benchmarks in favor of transactional economic and security cooperation. This undermines the very conditions that enable an investment climate.
The 2024 U.S. State Department’s annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices, issued under Secretary of State Marco Rubio in August 2025, avoided references to internationally recognized human rights, such as the right to a fair trial, freedom of association and assembly, and the right to participate in elections, among others. This report was released in the same month that the government struck deals with some African countries to receive migrants from the United States, moves that sparked human rights and international law concerns. As an example of the impact, Uganda is one of the countries receiving migrants, and just last month, the government oversaw a dubious presidential election in which the internet was shut down, and re-elected four-decade President Yoweri Museveni’s son, the head of the military, admitted there were scores of extrajudicial killings of opposition supporters in the aftermath. The major opposition candidate, Bobi Wine, was under house arrest on election day, and escaped into hiding after his home was breached by authorities. While the United States has occasionally criticized dubious elections, as in response to balloting in Tanzania, there’s been no formal reaction from the U.S. government on Uganda.
Many elections across Africa in the past year have followed the same trend of widespread pre-election repression, unpopular electoral reforms to consolidate power, attacks on opposition parties and leaders, repression of citizens, and, in some cases, the killing of civilians. These violations have contributed to the return of coups and military rule in Africa. Recent coups in Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar, and the attempted coup in Benin, occurred after election cycles that failed to meet minimum human rights standards.
The U.S. government cannot ignore such weighty issues in its efforts to build infrastructure and trade cooperation. No serious investor wants to operate in an environment where leadership lacks legitimacy and political transitions are unpredictable. The erosion of electoral integrity and other governance concerns directly threaten infrastructure projects, trade, and long-term investment returns. For example, a $42 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) development project backed by the U.S. private sector has been under negotiation with the government of Tanzania since 2014, but has repeatedly suffered setbacks due to policy and regulatory instability. Following serious human rights violations during Tanzania’s 2025 elections, the Trump administration announced a review of U.S.–Tanzania relations, further delaying the project. However, the U.S. government quickly returned to the negotiating table without securing credible guarantees for human rights protection.
If certain U.S. engagement on trade and investment is to be routed through the AU, governance failures must also be addressed through the AU, whose election-observation missions regularly document serious violations but rarely trigger meaningful follow-up.
A Necessary Course Correction
It is not the responsibility of the United States to guarantee elections or human rights protection in Africa. That responsibility lies squarely with the African Union and its member states. Yet if the United States is serious about building durable economic partnerships through the AU or otherwise, it must ensure that good governance, human rights, and the rule of law are central to these efforts. The Trump administration must return to incorporating human rights in its foreign policy and in its cooperation with the African Union.
Until this shift occurs, Congress should continue to include human rights conditionalities in appropriations bills, consistently raise these concerns during oversight hearings, and use legislative processes to embed human rights considerations directly into statute. Given the Trump administration’s close affinity with the private sector, U.S. businesses occupy a vantage position from which they should push the administration to focus on governance and the rule of law as essential enablers of a stable investment environment. To the extent American businesses adhere to strict U.S. laws such as Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), they can use that to their advantage in marketing to consumers about their business practices, but they also may face certain structural disadvantages against competitors that exploit weak oversight in other countries to secure deals, unless the United States exerts appropriate pressure on trading partners for reform. In addition, American CEOs should emphasize how weak governance and policy climates increase investment risk and increase the real costs for business.
Support for continental human rights mechanisms, such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which has the mandate to promote accountability, the rule of law, and good governance, would bolster human rights and legal protections for investments in Africa. Providing support for ratification of AU treaties such as the Malabo Protocol, which establishes the jurisdiction of the proposed African Court of Justice and Human Rights to address corruption and unconstitutional changes of government as serious human rights crimes would transform the legal and regulatory space in favor of investment. Stable and predictable legal frameworks, credible dispute resolution mechanisms, and protection against arbitrary state action are necessary for developmental investments.
The AU must play a stronger role in enforcing existing policy instruments that define governance and human rights standards, such as the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, and the Guidelines on Access to Information and Elections in Africa. The human rights mechanisms, especially the African Court and the African Commission, must be granted the independence and capacity to serve as true human rights watchdogs, and their input and guidance should be reflected in the development of major initiatives, such as those envisaged by the Strategic Infrastructure and Investment Working Group. This is particularly important because these bodies comprises human rights experts with interdisciplinary experience and are closely apprised of the human rights situation across African countries. The African Union Commission should more actively check the actions of member states that undermine the independence of regional mechanisms and give visibility to actions that strengthen accountability and governance across the continent. In the same vein, the African Union Advisory Board Against Corruption must be firmly embedded in this investment framework, with a clear mandate to entrench robust safeguards against all forms of corruption.
A strong regional justice system not only strengthens the AU’s credibility as an accountable decision-maker but also signals to investors that Africa is a stable and predictable market, unlocking greater foreign engagement and investment across the continent. Moreover, the Strategic Infrastructure and Investment Working Group should incorporate business and human rights principles into its decisions, ensuring that all investments respect human rights and are guided by robust due diligence, transparency, informed community participation, and strong environmental and social safeguards. This must be coupled with clear accountability and anti-corruption measures, including accessible remedies for affected communities. In the long run, a stable political and economic environment in Africa sustained by the African Union and its Regional Economic Communities advances U.S. interests and makes investment profitable for U.S. businesses and Africans alike.
