African leaders to tackle Covid and conflict at virtual summit

African leaders will open a two-day virtual summit on Saturday to discuss the continent’s response to Covid-19 as well as security concerns that have been overlooked during the pandemic.

The African Union summit comes almost exactly one year after Egypt recorded Africa’s first case of Covid-19, sparking widespread fears that weak health systems in member states would be quickly overwhelmed.

But despite early predictions of the apocalypse, the continent has so far been less affected than other regions, recording 3.5% of global virus cases and 4% of global deaths, according to the African Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

Today, however, many African countries are grappling with damaging second waves while scrambling to secure sufficient vaccine doses.

African leaders speak out against hoarding by rich countries to the detriment of the poorest.

“There is vaccine nationalism on the rise, with other rich countries skipping the queue, some even pre-ordering more than necessary,” said Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the AU executive body, the African Union Commission, in a recent interview. AU put online.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will provide an update on the response to the pandemic during the closed part of the summit on Saturday, according to a draft program seen by AFP.

Funding for vaccines should also be discussed, Africa CDC director John Nkengasong said at a press conference this week.

Elections and crises

Meanwhile, member states must hold internal elections to lead the restructured commission – the results of which will shape how the AU responds to the pandemic and a host of economic and security challenges.

Faki, a former prime minister of Chad, is running unopposed for a second four-year term as commission chief.

He has yet to get two-thirds of the vote, overcome accusations – which he denies – of “a culture of sexual harassment, bribery, corruption and bullying within the commission,” wrote the International Crisis Group in a recent briefing.

In another race, Nigerian Bankole Adeoye is favored to head the AU’s newly merged political affairs and peace and security departments, diplomats say, though AU rules dividing the most positions high between sub-regions of Africa could lead to a surprising result.

Whoever wins could play a critical role, along with Faki, in resolving crises that the AU is accused of neglecting.

There are multiple internal conflicts that the AU did not do to resolve.

Its Peace and Security Council has failed to hold meetings on the conflict between government forces and English-speaking separatists in Cameroon, for example, as well as on the rise of Islamist militancy in Mozambique.

A three-month-old conflict in AU host country Ethiopia between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the former ruling party in the northern Tigray region has proved particularly sensitive.

Abiy rejected calls from high-level AU envoys for talks with the Tigrayan leadership, sticking to his line that the conflict is a limited “law and order” operation.

This weekend’s summit comes as new US President Joe Biden promises to re-engage with multilateral institutions like the African Union.

In a video message released on Friday, Biden said his administration would engage in “sustained diplomacy, linked to the African Union, to resolve conflicts that claim lives across the African continent.”