On Monday, June 8, 2026, in Lomé, the United Nations Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and head of MONUSCO, James Swan, together with the UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Huang Xia, met with Togolese Council President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, who serves as the African Union mediator for the eastern DRC crisis.
According to the Togolese presidency, discussions focused on the progress of ongoing diplomatic efforts and the United Nations’ contribution to the African Union-led mediation aimed at a lasting resolution to the crisis in eastern DRC.
Both UN officials, who are deeply involved in peace and stabilisation initiatives in eastern DRC and the Great Lakes region, are in Lomé for the semi-annual evaluation meeting of the African Union mediation in that part of the continent.
“The United Nations representatives commended Togo’s commitment to promoting peace, stability, and peaceful conflict resolution in Africa. They expressed their readiness to support the Council President, the AU designated mediator, in working toward a fair and sustainable solution to the crisis affecting this region,” the Togolese presidency stated.
Appointed as African Union mediator for the eastern DRC crisis, replacing Angolan President João Lourenço, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé has been holding multiple consultations with the United Nations over recent months to foster a coordinated approach for peace in the Great Lakes region.
James Swan’s presence in Lomé is especially significant. Having assumed his post nearly two months ago, he is attending the semi-annual evaluation meeting of the peace initiatives under the African mediation led by Togo for the first time.
The meeting comes at a time when, despite the Washington Agreement and successive evaluation meetings, the security and humanitarian situation in eastern DRC continues to worsen. This deterioration persists even as numerous diplomatic initiatives aimed at resolving the crisis have been launched.
Eroding trust between the parties and a lack of political will among certain regional actors, which hinders the effective implementation of commitments, remain major challenges for mediators, particularly the United States and Qatar. They are urged to continue pushing for a resolution to the current security crisis, marked by the AFC/M23 rebellion, which Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of backing.
In response, voices at national, regional, and international levels continue to call on all parties to honour the commitments made under peace initiatives. Yet these appeals have so far yielded little tangible result. The goal of bridging the persistent gap between ground realities and diplomatic progress recorded on paper remains elusive. Each party continues to interpret the agreement’s provisions in its own way, making implementation increasingly hypothetical.
The same applies to the Doha process, under Qatar’s auspices. Despite several rounds of talks, Kinshasa and the AFC/M23 rebellion still struggle to align their positions on key points of disagreement. The Montreux stage in Switzerland, intended to inject new momentum into the process, did not yield the expected results. Commitments from that negotiation phase have not been fully honoured, while the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East has also pushed this issue to the sidelines, further slowing mediation efforts.
