The opening session of AU Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia. Experts say the continental body has failed to solve Africa's
development challenges. FILE PHOTO | NATION
Continental body African Union (AU) has come under tight
scrutiny as experts say that it has failed to solve Africa’ development
challenges.
Speaking on Friday during a panel
discussion at the three-day Mo Ibrahim Governance Weekend hosted in
Kigali, Rwanda, experts said AU was a club for presidents and powerful
individuals.
“The AU always defends African leaders
when their stay in power is being questioned legitimately or
illegitimately, but is not quick to react to challenges met by ordinary
Africans, such as the asylum seekers stuck in the treacherous desert,
leaving their homes in Nigeria, Niger or Eritrea,” said Nanjala Nyabola,
a Kenyan writer and activist.
“There is a fixation on
being anti-Europe within the AU, and this is a fallacy and a misleading
argument. What we want to be talking about as Africans is free speech,
democracy, freedom of association, economic empowerment – not
differences with Europe.”
Dr Confort Ero, the Director
of International Crisis Group argued that whereas the AU is still needed
on the continent, it has failed and therefore required massive reforms.
Refugee crisis
She said that the pan-African body lacked a clear strategy on
managing the refugee crisis that hit Sub-Saharan Africa in the past
years and also turned a blind eye to African leaders whose quest for
power caused violence and economic slowdown.
“The AU is
a bureaucratic body that has no immediate answers for the widespread
support for third-termism by African leaders today. The body was created
to bring about democratisation, constitutionalism and peace — and yet —
these are exactly the same problems we still surfer today,” Ms Ero
said.
“The body has to adapt to the needs of the
Africans today; stop missing in action in the matters of its member
countries and champion the aspiration of ordinary Africans.”
Dr
Donald Kaberuka, the former president of the African Development Bank,
however, defended AU saying dissolving the body would be an “absolute
disaster” for the continent.
Milestones
Dr
Kaberuka — who is also member of the AU Reforms Advisory Committee —
said that whereas change is needed, AU had overseen some of the largest
milestones the continent has made such as signing the Continental Free
Trade Area (CFTA) treaty, the world’s largest single market.
“Creation
of the CFTA is a demonstration that the African people want the AU to
succeed. Therefore the idea that it has been inefficient is inaccurate
today,” he said.
“Yes I totally agree with the need for
reform, but the AU represents Africa’s needs for its own strategy, not a
Chinese, European or American strategy,” he added.
He
was supported by Carlos Lopez, former executive secretary of the United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), who remarked that the AU
has to be made more powerful in order to respond to the continent’s
challenges.
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