Over the last decades, various explanatory narratives of African armed conflicts have been articulated in both political-media and academic circuits (ethnicity, the resource curse, failed states, international terrorism, violent extremism, climate change, etc.) that have framed and driven certain international peace-building policies and have given rise to a rich theoretical debate on the causes of political armed violence in the region. Based on the review of this debate, this paper aims to present an analytical proposal (tool) to address the complexity of causes and factors that converge in each scenario of armed conflict, whether political, socio-economic, cultural, gender, identity-related, and coming from different spheres (international, regional, transnational, state, local).