Pan-Africanism has historically carried the promise of collective liberation and envisions a united front capable of resisting external control and asserting Africa’s place in the world on its own terms. It is the philosophy behind many of the continental wide initiatives that have developed in the post-independence era. First came the Organization for African Unity (OAU). Established in 1963, the OAU was intended to institutionalize pan-Africanism, and in particular, self-determination. For over 30 years, the OAU played a crucial role in supporting independence struggles across the continent and opposing apartheid in South Africa.

Despite its commitment to anti-colonialism and continental integration, the OAU struggled to overcome internal divisions, particularly around sovereignty and non-interference, significantly limiting its effectiveness. Rather, the OAU shielded authoritarian regimes at the expense of Africans. Ultimately, the organization’s inability to meaningfully promote political and economic unity, resolve conflicts, or prevent human rights abuses demonstrated the gap between its pan-African ideals and institutional realities.

It is the failures of the OAU that led to the establishment of the African Union (AU) as a new and improved attempt to institutionalize pan-Africanism once more for the greater good. Established in 2001, the AU envisions a more progressive pan-Africanism. It explicitly promotes principles such as democratic governance, human rights, gender equality and collective intervention to prevent conflicts and human rights abuses. The AU has established instruments that demonstrate greater emphasis on gender equality and women’s empowerment. These include the Maputo Protocol in 2003 and more recently, the African Union Convention on Ending Violence against Women and Girls in 2024.

Both the OAU and its successor, the AU, however, have historically prioritized patriarchal interpretations of pan-Africanism, often marginalizing women’s voices, experiences and leadership in favour of male-dominated political narratives and power structures. Despite rhetorical commitments to gender equality, patriarchal practices have persisted within their institutions, evident in the limited representation of women in decision-making roles and a reluctance to systematically address gender-based violence and inequality in conflict and peacebuilding contexts. Consequently, pan-Africanism, as institutionalized by both organizations, has reproduced the same patriarchal norms that govern unequal global politics, this time, within the continent. Invariably, this undermines the transformative of pan-Africanism, which feminist activists and scholars have called out.

Feminists challenge this dominant ‘story’ of pan-Africanism and its praxis for excluding gender minorities, especially women and their experiences for a pan-Africanist future. This is despite the fact that early pan-Africanists like Thomas Sankara famously asserted that ‘there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women.’ In actively supporting women’s participation in political, economic and social life in Burkina Faso, and the continent, Sankara centred feminism within pan-Africanism, wherein patriarchal oppression must be rejected.

As contemporary African feminists like Sylvia Tamale and Amina Mama have shown, a pan-Africanism that is feminist is the only route to true agency, not a matter of choosing between global powers. This approach revitalizes pan-Africanism by insisting that unity and sovereignty cannot be built on patriarchal, elite-driven foundations. It centres the voices, labour and leadership of those long excluded from state-centric and masculinist approaches to African unity. Post-independence state-building often concentrated power in male-dominated institutions, sidelining women’s movements and obscuring the labour and knowledge production of feminist organizers across the continent. For instance, across the continent, very few women have held positions of power as presidents or prime ministers, or have held top positions in defence, foreign policy or the economy.

Feminist pan-Africanism insists on reclaiming the full legacy of pan-Africanism. In this vision, the pan-Africanist project not only confronts racial and imperial domination but also gendered and class-based inequalities that weaken Africa’s collective strength. Without feminist inclusion, pan-Africanism is weak in its credibility and its strategic reach becomes limited. It is important to note, however, that what feminist pan-Africanism offers is not an add-on to the existing vision, but a redefinition of its foundations. It calls for an expanded understanding of solidarity—one that includes struggles over domestic labour, land rights, bodily autonomy, and care work as central to African sovereignty. It sees unity not as consensus among elites, but as shared struggle against the intersecting systems of patriarchy, capitalism, militarism and neocolonialism. In doing so, it strengthens the original promise of pan-Africanism by rooting it in the everyday lives and demands of African people, especially those at the margins of formal politics.

With this understanding, a feminist pan-Africanism offers a sharper lens for analysing and understanding global politics that is contentious and ostensibly multipolar. It exposes how the global economy depends on undervalued African labour—especially women’s labour—while extracting resources and displacing communities. It challenges securitized approaches to governance that rely on militarization that includes foreign militaries. It demands development alternatives that prioritize ecological balance, and economic redistribution over extractive growth and reparations for past and current harms. This approach is necessary because ecological collapse reinforces poverty and conflict, and women especially bear the brunt of ongoing extraction. Confronting these challenges unequivocally is essential to liberation.

In this volatile global moment—marked by climate crisis, geopolitical rivalries, authoritarian resurgence and deepening inequality—Africa needs a bold and inclusive political strategy. Feminist pan-Africanism is not just an internal reform of pan-African ideals; it is a necessary reorientation of Africa’s role in the world, one that centres justice, accountability and people’s power as the foundation for genuine sovereignty.