2025 Milefsky Award winner: African Union Border Programme (AUBP)

In 2025, IBRU awarded the eighth annual Raymond Milefsky Award to the African Union Border Programme, for its contribution to the delimitation of over 80,000 kilometres of borders on the continent as well as its support for cross-border cooperation. IBRU’s Director Professor Philip Steinberg spoke with Dr Sunday Angoma Okello, Head of the AUBP.

 What led to the establishment of the AUBP?

The establishment of the African Union Border Programme in 2007 was the result of a deliberate policy evolution rather than a reaction to a single event.

Since 1964, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) adopted the principle of respect for borders inherited at independence, as articulated in the Cairo Resolution. That principle provided political stability at a critical moment in Africa’s state formation. However, over time it became evident that many boundaries remained insufficiently delimited and demarcated, and that this lack of clarity could contribute to tensions, administrative uncertainty, and obstacles to integration.

In January 2007, the AU Assembly encouraged the Commission to strengthen structural conflict prevention, including through the operationalization of a continental border programme. This led to the First Conference of African Ministers in Charge of Border Issues in June 2007, which formally adopted the Declaration establishing the AUBP.

The Programme was therefore conceived as a preventive instrument, designed to assist Member States in clarifying boundaries peacefully, strengthening institutional capacity, and promoting cooperation along border areas. It was not triggered by one isolated crisis, but by a recognition that proactive boundary clarification and governance are essential components of long-term peace and integration.

What has been the AUBP’s greatest challenge?

If I were to identify one overarching challenge, it would be the complexity of translating a continental political commitment into sustained, technical, and nationally owned processes on the ground.

Border delimitation and demarcation are not simply technical exercises. They are legal, historical, political, financial, and sometimes highly sensitive processes. Each Member State context is different. Some boundaries are already delimited but not demarcated. Others require archival research, bilateral negotiations, field surveys, and long-term financing. This means progress is rarely linear.

A second related challenge is resources. Delimitation and especially demarcation can be costly and time intensive. Many Member States face competing national priorities, and border processes may not always receive immediate budgetary allocation.

Is cooperation in boundary delimitation possible among countries with disagreements?

Cooperation in boundary delimitation is often most necessary in precisely those contexts.

Once states agree to clarify and formalize their boundary through dialogue, they are already demonstrating political maturity and mutual respect. Experience has shown that cooperation in delimitation can unlock broader forms of cooperation. When two countries establish a joint boundary commission, share data, conduct joint field missions, and agree on technical outcomes, they build trust. That trust can extend to cross-border infrastructure, trade facilitation, joint natural resource management, and even coordinated security arrangements.

In this sense, boundary delimitation should not be seen merely as drawing a line. It is a confidence-building exercise. It provides legal clarity, reduces the risk of misunderstanding, and creates a stable foundation for cross-border cooperation.

On the one hand, the AUBP seeks better definition of borders. On the other hand, the AUBP promotes cross-border integration. How does the AUBP align these two, potentially divergent, priorities?

At first glance, defining borders more clearly and promoting cross-border integration may appear to pull in different directions. In practice, they are mutually reinforcing.

The starting point is clarity. When a boundary is delimited and, where possible, demarcated, it removes ambiguity. Ambiguity is often the source of tension, administrative confusion, and competing claims over land, resources, or jurisdiction. Legal certainty reduces the risk of dispute and creates a stable framework within which cooperation can take place.

In that sense, delimitation is not about hardening borders. It is about stabilizing them. Once two states have clarity about where their boundary lies, they can move confidently toward facilitating movement, trade, and joint management initiatives without fear that cooperation will prejudice sovereignty.

Instruments such as the Niamey Convention and the AU Strategy for Better Border Governance recognize that African borders are not just lines on a map, they are lived spaces. Communities, markets, ecosystems, and cultural networks often straddle those lines. Good border governance therefore combines respect for sovereignty with practical cooperation at local, national, and regional levels.

Clear borders provide predictability. Predictability builds trust. And trust creates space for integration. So rather than being divergent priorities, delimitation and cross-border cooperation are two sides of the same objective: peaceful, stable, and prosperous borderlands across the continent.

Other world regions also suffer from the colonial legacy of ill-defined, and perhaps ill- conceived, borders. What could they learn from the AUBP's experience?

One of the key lessons from Africa’s experience is that clarity and stability can be pursued without reopening foundational political questions. The continent made an early and decisive choice, through the 1964 Cairo principle on respecting inherited borders, to avoid redrawing boundaries and instead focus on clarifying and managing them peacefully. That principle created predictability, even where historical complexities remain.

A second lesson is that boundary issues should be institutionalized, not personalized. The AUBP has encouraged the establishment of joint boundary commissions, technical committees, and regular dialogue mechanisms. When boundary management is handled through standing structures rather than ad hoc political negotiations, it becomes more technical, more transparent, and less susceptible to escalation.

Third, delimitation and cooperation should move together. Africa’s experience shows that once legal clarity is pursued through peaceful processes, it becomes easier to promote cross-border development initiatives, shared infrastructure, and joint resource management. Borders do not need to be erased to allow integration. They need to be well governed.

The broader message is that borders need not be sources of permanent instability. With legal clarity, structured dialogue, and cooperative governance, they can become anchors of peace and platforms for regional integration.

Do you see a future for the AUBP once all of Africa's borders have been delimited and demarcated?

Absolutely. The 2007 Ministerial Declaration that established the AUBP framed delimitation and demarcation as foundational, but not exhaustive, components of border governance. Since then, AU instruments such as the Niamey Convention and the Strategy for Better Border Governance have expanded the focus toward sustainable, cooperative border management.

Border governance is dynamic. Population movements, climate change, cross-border trade, infrastructure corridors, and evolving security risks constantly reshape border realities. The role of the AUBP will increasingly be to support Member States in managing borders as zones of interaction, not simply as lines of separation.