But as leaders travel to Addis Ababa this weekend for the latest summit of the 55-member bloc, organised under the theme "Silencing the Guns", there is little question they are doomed to fall well short of their goal.
Michel Djotodia, 71, who resigned 10 months after seizing the presidency at the head of a Muslim rebellion in March 2013, landed on board a Royal Air Maroc flight from Casablanca via Douala in Cameroon. He had been living in exile in Benin.
Russia has made moves to strengthen its influence in the poor but strategic CAR in recent months, sending military instructors to the country and receiving mining concessions as part of a plan to boost its presence in Africa.
The central African CFA union comprises former French colonies Chad, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon and Central African Republic.
Thousands of people have been killed and about a fifth of the population of 4.5 million displaced in the wake of the 2013 coup.
A new report to the UN says impediments to peace range from attacks on civilians and humanitarian workers to 'doublespeak' from rebel forces, banditry and arms trafficking.
Charles Bouessel, 28, and Florent Vergnes, 30, said they were held for more than six hours and questioned three times on Saturday after having been manhandled by members of the Central Office for the Suppression of Banditry (OCRB).
The slaughter near Paoua was the biggest single loss of life since the government and 14 militias signed a deal in February aimed at restoring peace to one of Africa's most troubled countries.
The decree said the Russian contingent would include military observers, staff officers and military communications specialists.
The deal is the eighth attempt to bring peace to the conflict-wracked, impoverished state since 2012.
The peace deal was signed in the CAR capital Bangui on 6 February after it had been concluded in negotiations in Sudan.
The single market is a flagship of the AU's "Agenda 2063" programme, conceived as a strategic framework for socioeconomic transformation.
The deal is the eighth attempt in nearly six years to forge peace in the war-ravaged country - one of the poorest in the world.
CAR plunged into chaos after mainly Muslim insurgents called the Seleka overthrew President Francois Bozize, a Christian, in 2013, sparking the bloodiest sectarian violence in the country's history.
The accord, the eighth since 2012, was initialled by President Faustin Archange Touadera for the CAR government, an AFP correspondent reported.
Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, allegedly a former militia leader, was detained on 12 December while in France on official business, his lawyer told judges.
The International Criminal Court issued a warrant in December for Ngaissona for allegedly coordinating so-called anti-Balaka militias which emerged after civil war broke out in the Central African Republic in 2013.
French Defence Minister Florence Parly oversaw the handover at a ceremony at M'Polo military base in the capital Bangui.
