Summary
· Most of the sessions are being held behind closed doors at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, with more than 30 presidents and prime ministers in attendance
Addis Ababa. African leaders met Saturday to discuss a slew of
challenges facing the continent as UN chief Antonio Guterres urged them to do
more to bring peace to conflict-hit regions.
Africa is reeling from a record
drought in the Horn and deadly violence in the Sahel region and the eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the two-day African Union summit
aiming to address these issues and jumpstart a faltering free trade pact.
Most of the sessions are being held
behind closed doors at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis
Ababa, with more than 30 presidents and prime ministers in attendance.
But eyes will be on the bloc to see
if it can achieve ceasefires in the Sahel and the eastern DRC, where the M23
militia has seized swathes of territory and sparked a diplomatic row between
Kinshasa and Rwanda's government, which is accused of backing the rebels.
Guterres called for Africa to take
"action for peace", adding that the continent of 1.4 billion people
faced "enormous tests... on virtually every front".
"I am deeply concerned about
the recent rise in violence by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic
of the Congo and the rise of terrorist groups in the Sahel and elsewhere,"
he told the gathering.
"The mechanisms for peace are
faltering," the UN secretary-general warned. Nevertheless, he urged the
bloc to "continue to battle for peace".
At a mini-summit on Friday, leaders
of the seven-nation East African Community pushed for all armed groups to
withdraw from occupied areas in the eastern DRC by the end of next month.
Guterres met with several African
leaders on Friday, including Rwandan President Paul Kagame, to discuss in
particular the crisis in the Congo.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed,
host of the summit, lauded the bloc for its role mediating a peace deal between
his government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in November to
end a brutal two-year year in northern Ethiopia.
Backsliding of democracy
Junta-ruled Mali, Burkina Faso and
Guinea, which have been suspended from the AU, cannot participate in this
weekend's summit, but have sent diplomats to Addis Ababa to lobby for
readmission.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the
African Union Commission, told the meeting the bloc needed to come up with new
strategies to counter the backsliding of democracy on the continent.
He said "sanctions imposed on
member states following unconstitutional changes of government... do not seem
to produce the expected results".
"It seems necessary to
reconsider the system of resistance to the unconstitutional changes in order to
make it more effective," Faki added.
The summit will also aim to
accelerate implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement
(AfCFTA) launched in 2020.
The deal is billed as the biggest in
the world in terms of population, gathering 54 out of 55 African countries,
with Eritrea the only holdout.
African nations currently trade only
about 15 percent of their goods and services with each other, and the AfCFTA
aims to boost that by 60 percent by 2034 by eliminating almost all tariffs.
But implementation has fallen well
short of that goal, running into hurdles including disagreements over tariff
reductions and border closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The African leaders are also
expected to discuss the food crises rocking a continent hit hard by the worst
drought in four decades and the knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine that
have pushed up the cost of basic goods.
Debt cancellation call
Created in 2002 following the
disbanding of the Organisation of African Unity, the AU comprises all 55
African countries, with a population of 1.4 billion people.
While the bloc has been credited
with taking a stand against coups, it has long been criticised as ineffectual.
Kagame, who has been urging the AU
to implement major changes for years, is due to present a report on the reform
of the bloc's institutions.
The Rwandan leader has called for
the AU to take steps towards financial independence, with the bloc largely
dependent on foreign donors.
Comoros President Azali Assoumani,
leader of the small Indian Ocean archipelago of almost 900,000 people, took
over the one-year rotating AU chairmanship from Senegal's Macky Sall.
Assoumani, 64, called for a
"total cancellation" of African debt in his acceptance speech, but
did not elaborate on how this would be achieved.
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