ACCRA, 2 July 2026 | By African Meridian Staff
The Third African Union Reflection Forum on Unconstitutional Changes of Government is set to begin in Accra, Ghana, with a sharpened focus on youth inclusion and on combating the political instability that has unsettled several regions of the continent.
Unconstitutional changes of government — the AU’s term encompassing coups and other seizures of power outside the ballot box — have returned as one of the organisation’s most pressing governance challenges. Each occurrence tests the strength of the AU’s own norms, which formally reject the forcible removal of governments and provide for the suspension of offending states from the Union’s activities.
By hosting the forum in Accra, the AU draws on Ghana’s standing as one of West Africa’s more established democracies at a moment when several of its neighbours are under military rule. The choice underscores a message: that constitutional order and peaceful transfers of power remain the continental standard, however frequently they are breached.
The emphasis on youth inclusion reflects a hard demographic reality. Africa is the world’s youngest continent, and young people are often both the most affected by governance failures and, at times, among those who welcome military interventions as a break from stagnant or unaccountable politics. Bringing them into the conversation is an attempt to address the disillusionment that instability feeds on.
The forum’s ambition is to move from condemnation toward prevention — examining the governance deficits, exclusion and broken social contracts that create openings for unconstitutional takeovers in the first place.