Trust, healing and legitimacy – a contribution to the African Union Agenda 2063
An initiative by Peter Urs Aeberhard, THAC · first draft for discussion · October 2026
In short: Africa has set its own course with Agenda 2063: “The Africa We Want”. Its goals are clear. But programmes and investments fail not only for lack of capital or coordination. They also fail because violence, injustice and corruption have destroyed trust: between groups, and between citizens and the state. Prosperity that lasts needs societies that can heal. This initiative proposes how that gap can be closed. It does not amend Agenda 2063; it opens a further path towards its goals.
Why this initiative
For thirty years I have worked in and with Africa, as a political advisor, peacebuilder, regional representative, from Somalia and the Horn to the Great Lakes, West Africa and the Sahel. Again and again I saw well-designed programmes stall. They stalled not because the plan was wrong, but because the people who were meant to carry it no longer trusted each other or the institutions around them.
Agenda 2063 speaks more than any other framework of identity, values and people-driven development. Together with the UN’s Agenda 2030 it is strong on rules, coordination and adaptation. Both are weak where trust is lost and has to be rebuilt:
- The African Union treats transitional justice and reparations in separate policies, outside the goals and indicators of Agenda 2063.
- Agenda 2030 has no goal and no indicator for reconciliation, collective trauma or repair.
- Mental well-being is a target, but it is measured only through suicide mortality.
This is not a detail. Where trust is broken, rules are not believed, coordination does not hold and investments do not land. → A stress test of Agenda 2063 and Agenda 2030
What “healthy prosperity” means
Prosperity is healthy when it rests on trust, when people and institutions can recover from violence and injustice, and when it serves life as a whole: people, land, water and the next generation. Prosperity built on unhealed wounds, captured institutions or depleted nature does not last.
The hypothesis
Healing, recognition and repair can, under certain conditions, make existing peace, governance and development processes more effective.
The initiative does not claim that healing causes development. It asks when and under which conditions healing measurably improves processes that are already under way. The effect runs both ways: without security, justice and income, healing is hardly possible.
“Healing” is not one thing. The initiative distinguishes four dimensions, each with its own mechanism, indicators and evidence:
| Dimension | What it means | Evidence today |
|---|---|---|
| Psychosocial recovery | trained lay or professional support reduces distress and restores the ability to work and live | strong (Liberia, Zimbabwe) |
| Social reconnection | accompanied encounter and joint activity reduce mistrust between groups | good, with risks (Sierra Leone) |
| Institutional repair and accountability | institutions that acknowledge wrongs, handle complaints and make amends gain trust | plausible, little tested |
| Collective memory | public acknowledgement of history and suffering reduces humiliation and polarisation | contested, context-dependent |
Four pillars
The initiative contributes to four long-term goals, each linked to the aspirations of Agenda 2063. They are the direction, not the claim of impact:
- Healing: the burdens of violence, war and injustice are acknowledged and worked through, for victims and perpetrators alike. (Aspirations 4 and 5)
- Prosperity in harmony with nature: healing is tied to livelihoods: work, health, land and water. Healing without bread is just a word. (Aspirations 1 and 6)
- Democratic stability and legitimacy: institutions gain trust because they recognise, protect and account for their actions. (Aspiration 3)
- Security: security forces protect instead of threaten. (Aspiration 4)
Governance and the security sector
Trust is lost and rebuilt above all in the relationship between citizens and those who hold power, including the security forces. The initiative therefore asks:
- How do security institutions recognise the pressure and trauma their own personnel carry, and how does it shape their conduct towards the population?
- Who oversees the security forces, and can citizens complain with effect?
- How can reform processes include acknowledgement and repair where security forces have caused harm?
- How do governments rebuild trust after violence against protesters or communities?
- What do leaders in ministries and security institutions need in order to steer under sustained pressure?
These questions build on the 2024 DCAF study on trauma as a missing element in security sector governance and reform, of which the author was primary author, and on ongoing work on the relational governance of security institutions. → Publications
Testing, not assuming
The hypothesis is meant to be tested, not assumed. Where and how this happens will be decided together with African partners, within peace, governance and security processes that are already under way. Any test will follow clear standards: baseline data, a comparison, independent evaluation, attention to possible harm, and criteria for disproof fixed in advance. If the results are positive, the initiative will offer Agenda 2063, which sets interim targets up to 2033, indicators for repair, recognition and trust.
An international idea, African ownership
The idea is international. It draws on experience in Africa, Europe and the diaspora, and on research from many places. Its organisation and implementation are African: an African consortium of universities, practitioners and faith networks; anchoring in existing AU and regional instruments; no new continental body and no donor-driven fund. Northern partners stay at the margin, entering through economic cooperation, vocational training and fair work, not through steering.
This draft does not wait for consensus. It is put forward to start a process: to be read, contested and taken up. That is why it was tested before publication by a panel of simulated voices from across the continent and beyond. The panel is openly declared as such. → Method: virtual co-authors and virtual evaluation
Role of THAC: initiator, coordination and facilitation in the start-up phase, not owner. THAC hands facilitation over to African partners, discloses its mandates and never evaluates its own work.
What it is not
Not a new agenda beside Agenda 2063 or Agenda 2030. Not a programme for every African state. Not a donor agenda. Not a solution for acute wars. Not a substitute for structural reform, justice or fair distribution.
The strongest objection
Africa’s development and peace problems arise not primarily from a lack of collective healing, but from unequal power, economies of violence, institutional deficits, political exclusion and unjust distribution of resources. Healing must not become a psychological reframing of structural problems.
This critique of “therapeutic governance” (Pupavac 2001) is taken seriously. The initiative treats healing as an additional, testable factor. Any test includes material benefits and repair. Corruption, nature and security remain fields in their own right.
The analytical lens
The initiative reads the existing agendas through the Relational Systems Framework (RSF), a framework on the functions human systems must fulfil and the conditions under which they succeed. The RSF is a lens, not a proof. → The Relational Systems Framework
Join the discussion
This is a first draft. I invite practitioners, researchers, survivors, young leaders, faith and traditional actors, and above all critics, to take it apart, improve it, or carry it further.
Contact: peter.aeberhard@thac.ch
Pages of this initiative: Initiatives · Stress test of Agenda 2063 and 2030 · Relational Systems Framework · Method · Experience · Français
This is a personal proposal by Peter Urs Aeberhard (THAC GmbH, Bern). It does not speak for the African Union, for any African institution or for any forum in which the author is involved.