Dr Rodrigue NGASSAM, University of Douala
From Khartoum to the Sahel, from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to West African capitals, the African continent went through a sequence of security, political, economic and social interlocking crises in 2025. At the beginning of 2026, there was a demand: to move from sovereign discourses to governance capable of improving people’s daily lives.
By being forced to “proven resilience,” Africa eventually gives the impression of being condemned to endurance. As if holding, cashing and surviving were a political project. The year 2025, for a large part of the continent, will have been that of the cumulative tensions: conflicts that are rooted, democracy in decline, persistent misgovernance, daily economies under pressure, repeated climate chaos, latent health insecurity. On arrival, an almost brutal question arises: what should we wish Africa in 2026, if not what it lacks most today a useful, measurable and shared course of stability?
A continent under systemic pressure
The war in several parts of Africa has become a permanent background noise. The Sudan offers one of the most tragic examples: a broken society, collapsed institutions, a massive humanitarian crisis with regional repercussions. When a conflict lasts, it is not only lives that disappear; It is state capabilities, human skills and collective futures that are extinguishing.
In the eastern part of the continent, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to pay the price for an old, fragmented and internationalized conflict, where armed groups thrive on the weakness of the CongoState, competition around natural resources and the abandonment of certain peripheries. Again, chronic insecurity undermines civic confidence, disorganizes the local economy and feeds massive population displacements.
In the Sahel, West Africa and Central Africa, terrorism continues to take root despite successive military operations. The dominant response remains secure, often justified in the name of sovereignty. But there is no doubt: the strictly military victory, without a functional state, without public services, without justice, without schools or economic prospects, remains fragile. We can take back territories and lose societies.
At the same time, 2025 confirmed a worrying resurgence of coups d’état and, more broadly, a persistent temptation to reject pluralist democracy. Rewritten or unfulfilled constitutions, prolonged transitions, locked elections, marginalised oppositions, limited public freedoms: the governance of constraint tends to become trivial. However, the stability achieved by locking is stability on credit. It is always reimbursed by abstention, by the street, by the exile of elites, by radicalisation of margins. One can govern a time against pluralism; We don’t rule over society for long.
Finally, bad governance is reflected in its most visible social effects: irregular immigration routes. Many young Africans are not only fleeing poverty, but the lack of prospects, injustice, arbitrariness and sense of being useless in their own country. When the economy does not create decent jobs, when corruption blocks social mobility, when the state does not offer protection or projection, exile becomes a survival strategy. This is not an individual failure; It is a collective failure of governance.
Economically, 2025 recalled a brutal truth: average growth does not feed real families. Debt servicing and the cost of financing strangle public investment, at a time when health, education, water, energy and urban infrastructure are exploding. The dilemma is known: repay to stay solvent, invest to stay viable.
These vulnerabilities add to climate and health shocks. Droughts, floods and cyclones re-design public budgets, internal migration and food vulnerabilities. The circulation of mpox in 2025 reminds us that a health crisis does not need to be global in order to be politically structuring.
And yet, Africa is moving forward. The African Free Trade Area (ZLECAf) is progressing, despite its slow pace. Local innovations are emerging. Democratic experiences resist. The African Union continues to use integration. The instruments exist; What is missing is their concrete translation into the lives of citizens.
The wish for 2026: the sovereignty of everyday life
The wish for 2026 is a simple demand: that Africa make daily sovereignty its central agenda. Not a sovereignty of discourse, but a sovereignty of measurable results to street safety, access to care, the price of the housewife’s basket, water and electricity, the speed of relief, the impartiality of justice, the dignity of work.
Cela suppose quatre bascules majeures :
Making peace a full public policy; rehabilitate democracy as an effective social contract; putting the economy at the service of dignity and employment; treat climate adaptation and health as basic policies, as well as public security or finance.
The wish is not romantic. It’s technical. And this may be what makes it deeply subversive: making the state useful over the spectacular state. 2026 should be the year Africa requires fewer slogans and more evidence; less posture and more services; less promises and more responsibility.
For a young continent cannot be permanently governed by distrust. And in an increasingly transactional world, Africa will not gain by complaint, but by capacity: ability to protect, produce, care, educate and pacify.
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