{{African leaders and Western delegates will meet on uesday to drum up support for the African-led mission in Mali, or AFISMA, after the African Union requested urgent support to bolster the force\u2019s strength.}}<\/p>\n
AFISMA is intended to support the weak Malian army \u2013 which has been boosted by the French military intervention \u2013 in its battle against Islamist insurgents, who seized swathes of Mali\u2019s desert north following a coup last year.<\/p>\n
The AU\u2019s peace and security commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said he remained \u201creasonably optimistic\u201d about the outcome of the conference and said the AU would seek financial contributions as well as logistical support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have high hopes that we are going to succeed in mobilising resources and mobilising the type of equipment that will enable these troops to have autonomy for several months,\u201d he told media.<\/p>\n
Though attendees have not been officially confirmed, several African heads of state are expected at the conference, along with Western delegations, including from the European Union, France, Britain and the United States.<\/p>\n
United Nations leader Ban Ki-moon told the AU on Sunday that he was \u201cdetermined to do everything to help the people of Mali\u201d.<\/p>\n
Outgoing AU chair Thomas Yayi Boni on Sunday thanked France for its intervention and criticised African nations for being too slow to respond, in an appeal for \u201cfurther commitment\u2026 for the financing of all the forces.\u201d<\/p>\n
The West African bloc ECOWAS had set out plans to deploy several thousand troops to help Mali retake the occupied north, but the deployment has been delayed by financing and logistical concerns. Chad has also promised to send some 2,000 soldiers.<\/p>\n
The AU on Friday gave member states one week to commit additional troops to the mission, and has urged the UN to provide urgent \u201ctemporary\u201d logistical support \u2013 including transport, medicine and field hospitals \u2013 to tide the mission over between its deployment and receipt of donor pledges.<\/p>\n
While Lamamra fell short of offering a firm dollar target, a raft of figures have been floated by diplomats, ranging from $420 million to $1 billion.<\/p>\n
Analysts say significant support will be required to ensure the mission\u2019s success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{African leaders and Western delegates will meet on uesday to drum up support for the African-led mission in Mali, or AFISMA, after the African Union requested urgent support to bolster the force\u2019s strength.}} AFISMA is intended to support the weak Malian army \u2013 which has been boosted by the French military intervention \u2013 in its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-5441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5441"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=5441"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=5441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}