Federalism is often seen as a viable tool to reconcile unity and diversity, and in a continent deeply torn by ethnic cleavages such as Africa, federalism has often been taken into account to tame internal tensions, although not always successfully. Since the mid-1990s, several African countries have turned to federalism to restructure their constitutional system. A closer look at this recent wave of federal constitutionalism might thus allow to better understand to what extent federalism can help coping with the many problems endemic to Africa. Each African federation, however, is different from the other although they might share similar experiences. The goal of this panel is thus to illustrate how the problems common to most African countries are addressed in different contexts; furthermore, the partial failure of federal experiments in some of these countries may trigger questions about the actual capacity of federalism to deal with differences and reconcile unity and diversity.