Chapter six places IGAD’s regional peace-making within the wider context of shifting global peace and security paradigms. It explores how IGAD navigates emerging geopolitical, ecological, and normative trends—including the Triple Nexus (humanitarian-development-peace) and the climate-security interface, and global multipolarity—while maintaining its regional priorities and asserting African agency. The chapter begins by unpacking the Triple Nexus and its implications for RECs like IGAD, which are increasingly required to address interconnected challenges such as forced displacement, environmental degradation, and armed conflict. Drawing on field data and institutional analysis, the chapter assesses how IGAD adapts its strategies to meet these demands, often blending global frameworks with region-specific approaches. A key theme is the rise of multiplexity; a global order defined by diverse actors and overlapping norms. In this landscape, IGAD’s flexibility becomes an asset, allowing it to navigate relationships with external powers, including the United States, China, and the EU. The chapter examines how IGAD engages with international agendas such as the UN’s New Agenda for Peace while resisting external pressures that undermine African ownership. Particular attention is given to the “China factor” and the shifting geopolitics of non-intervention. The chapter analyses how China’s increasing involvement in African peace and security, especially through infrastructure diplomacy and strategic partnerships, affects IGAD’s operational space and ideological orientation. Despite limited resources and institutional fragility, IGAD is shown as developing a distinctive role as a norm-shaping actor in regional and global governance. The chapter argues that while IGAD’s autonomy is constrained by funding dependencies and political asymmetries, its continued relevance lies in its capacity to mediate between global norms and local realities, affirming African agency in a rapidly evolving world order.