COVID-19 and conflict vie for attention at African Union summit

ADDIS ABABA – African leaders are expected to focus on the continent’s response to COVID-19 at a virtual summit this weekend, as well as on the urgent security crises that have been overlooked during the pandemic.

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

But despite early apocalyptic predictions, 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 for Control and Control. disease prevention (Africa CDC).

Today, however, many African countries are battling damaging second waves while scrambling to secure sufficient doses of the vaccine.

“The developed North, which has substantial financial resources, has bought the most important stocks, while we in Africa are still struggling to get our fair share,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi said on Wednesday. Pandor in a speech opening a pre-summit ministers meeting.

Member states will also hold internal elections to lead a restructured executive body – the results of which will shape how the AU responds to the pandemic and a host of economic and security challenges.

Security crises, meanwhile, include a three-month-old conflict in AU host country Ethiopia and longer-lasting quagmires in the Sahel and elsewhere.

“We hope that the summit will provide African leaders with the opportunity to refocus their attention on a number of conflicts and crises that have distracted their attention, due to the logical focus on Covid over the course of the year. ‘last year,’ said Imogen Hooper, AU Analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG).

“HOLIDAY NATIONALISM”

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.

As outgoing AU president, Ramaphosa has spent the past year overseeing efforts to scale up testing and stock up on vaccines, while battling 1.5 million infections detected in his own country. – about 40% of the continent’s total.

This week, South Africa received one million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and the Ramaphosa government plans to inoculate 67% of its population by the end of the year.

The continent-wide targets are less ambitious, with the WHO describing an end-of-year target of around 30% as more “realistic”.

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.

ELECTIONS AND CRISES

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 intimidation within the commission,” ICG wrote in a briefing this week.

In a separate 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 important 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.

In the online interview, Faki touted his focus on conflict prevention, saying he was “happy to see that there is no conflict between states.”

But there are multiple internal crises that the AU has not done 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.

The conflict in Ethiopia between the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the former ruling party in the northern Tigray region has proved particularly sensitive.

Faki called for a cessation of hostilities a week after the fighting began in early November.

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

This is an example of how the influence of the AU can be limited, whoever is responsible.

“Whenever a member state has insisted that a conflict is internal,” said ICG’s Hooper, “the AU has found it difficult to get involved.”

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