This handbook offers an up-to-date analysis of the African agenda for conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding; the challenges and opportunities facing the AU and RECs? efforts in achieving a Pax Africana; and the role of external actors including the United Nations (UN) and former colonial powers Britain and France, but also key (non-African) troop contributing countries in these efforts. Building on the late Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui?s concept of Pax Africana - Africans taking responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security on their own continent - the authors argue that the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the AU in 2002, was a concrete step towards the realisation of an African-wrought vision of continental peace and prosperity, and has since witnessed the creation of a set of institutions - together known as the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) - for more robust conflict management.