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African leaders opened 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 coronavirus case, sparking widespread fears that weak health systems in member states could quickly be overwhelmed.
But despite early apocalyptic predictions, the continent has been less affected than other regions so far, recording 3.5% of virus cases and 4% of deaths worldwide, according to the African Centers for Control and Prevention. diseases.
Today, however, many African countries are grappling with damaging second waves while scrambling to secure sufficient vaccine doses.
“This disease has caused great suffering and hardship across our continent,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, outgoing AU president said on Saturday.
“It is not only a serious health emergency. It is also a serious economic and social crisis.”
African leaders have spoken out against the hoarding of vaccines by rich countries at the expense 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.
Ramaphosa was expected to provide an update on the pandemic response during the closed portion of the summit on Saturday, according to a draft program seen by AFP.
In his opening speech, he called for “a further injection of resources” from the International Monetary Fund to “correct the blatant inequality in fiscal stimulus measures between advanced economies and the rest of the world”.
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.
Moussa Faki Mahamat is running unopposed for a second four-year term as Chairman of the African Union Commission. By EDUARDO SOTERAS (AFP / File) 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 a 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.
Congo in charge
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.”
The summit marks the official start of the one-year AU presidency of Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi. By TONY KARUMBA (AFP / File) The summit also marks the official start of the one-year AU presidency of Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi, who replaces Ramaphosa.
Addressing his fellow heads of state and government on Saturday, Tshisekedi vowed to make the AU more relevant by removing it “from the meeting rooms.”
Tshisekedi presented an ambitious agenda that includes responding to climate change, tackling sexual violence, promoting the African Continental Free Trade Area and accelerating his own country’s Grand Inga hydroelectric project, which the AU considers it an important source of electricity for the continent.
But Tshisekedi is also embroiled in a power struggle at home with supporters of former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila.
Mohamed Diatta, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, said that Tshisekedi “is really trying to consolidate power at home, but it is not an easy task”.
“He’s probably still going to be busy with this because what he has created at home is essentially a very fragile and loose government coalition,” Diatta told AFP.
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