The Pretoria Agreement Implementation Report · PAIR
A Peace Agreement
in Terminal Crisis
Three years after the Pretoria Agreement silenced Africa's deadliest war, research with 103 participants finds a fragile negative peace — the guns are quiet, but constitutional order, justice, reconstruction and oversight remain unrealised.
Conflict fatalities collapsed after the ceasefire
Schematic of war intensity. Source: Pan African Agenda · Our World in Data · Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2024
Summary of Key Observations
Six provisions assessed
Security · Cessation of Hostilities
The guns fell silent ✓
The sole achievement acknowledged unanimously. Yet respondents call the peace fragile, reversible and reliant on exhaustion — not resolution.
Constitutional Order
83.3% say it is not restored
Approximately 40% of Tigray's territory remains under Amhara and Eritrean occupation.
Disarmament · DDR
Peace Agreements weaponised as loading time
Heavy weapons surrendered before any guarantee of withdrawal or protection. Reintegration packages inadequate; female fighters excluded.
Transitional Justice
89% trust neither party to deliver justice
75% are unaware of any transitional-justice initiative at all.
Reconstruction
70%+ call recovery absent or failing
Damages run to tens of billions; Tigray remains in emergency-relief mode.
Monitoring · AU MVCM
50% never saw a single report
The mechanism is seen as weak and aligned with the federal government.
The Human Toll Persists
Observations · PAIR
Nearly 900,000 remain displaced
Source: Pan African Agenda, IDP figures, Tigray, September 2025
Proposals for Action
What is to be done
Revitalise the Implementation Mechanisms of the Pretoria Agreement
Convene an inclusive, all-parties implementation meeting that accounts for new realities, reconstitutes the Tigray transitional process, and establishes credible enforcement mechanisms.
Launch high-level preventive diplomacy
Forestall relapse amid the regionalisation of war in Sudan and Ethiopia — and the rising threat of an Ethiopia–Eritrea war that would render the Agreement obsolete.
Form a 'Friends of the Pretoria Agreement' group
A USA–UN–EU–AU–IGAD bloc to replace the ineffective AU mechanism with stronger oversight, transparent reporting and accountability measures for spoilers.
Mobilise local constituencies for peace
Empower civil society, women, youth and Generation Z as agents of peacebuilding — drawing on movements like Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms and the Tigray Accountability Coalition.
What is to be done: Without urgent course correction, the Agreement will be remembered not as a celebrated blueprint for peace, but as a sobering record of solemn promises made and systematically broken — weaponized as a time-buying instrument for another military confrontation.
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