This is to cordially invite the general public to Prof. Phillip Kasaija Apuuli’s Inaugural Professorial Lecture on Friday, August 21, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. in the Makerere University Main Hall. Prof. Kasaija is a renowned political science scholar who is a member of staff in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, in the School of Social Sciences at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Makerere University.

Prof. Kasaija’s lecture, titled “Reflecting on the 2023 African Peace Mission to Ukraine and Russia,” (see abstract), is a significant academic event, especially as Makerere University positions itself as a research led/intensive global university. It will enable him to showcase his scholarly contribution and research achievements to the university community and the public.

Abstract

REFLECTING ON THE 2023 AFRICAN PEACE MISSION TO UKRAINE AND RUSSIA

Overview

In mid-June 2023, presidents from four African states (South Africa, Zambia, Senegal, and Comoros) and representatives from three others (Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt, and Uganda) undertook the African Peace Mission to Kyiv and Moscow to present a ten-point peace plan aimed at ending the Russo-Ukraine war. A group of African countries formulating a peace plan for a conflict outside the African continent was considered novel. The parties to the conflict received the plan with indifference, just as they have received other proposed peace plans formulated by different actors.

The main undoing of the APM peace plan seems to be that it called on the belligerents to de-escalate their conflict, an undefined notion which meant different things to each party. Nevertheless, while the initiative by these African leaders has faded from the scene, it underlines Africa’s increasingly assertive role in international affairs, a space in which its voice and perspectives have historically been marginalized.

This Inaugural Lecture inter-alia discusses issues of mediation, geo-politics, African international relations and African agency.