{{There are critical issues curiously not addressed or not given enough ventilation as epochal as the recent 50th anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was.}}
Alongside with this was the 21st ordinary summit of the Assembly of heads of state and government of the African Union (AU), the gathering in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, again reminded everyone that Africa remains the world’s poorest continent and its most war-prone even though development indicators – including health, education, infant mortality, economic growth and democracy – have improved steadily in the last 50 years.
Yes, a 50 year-strategic plan for An African rebirth has been put in place. But the leaders did not spell out the elements or specifics of monitoring and evaluation mechanism in the action plan even when such questions were raised. And when they spoke about assessment, the procedure for benchmarking of progress across the states remained vague.
Knowing full well that the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is billed to come into force in 2015, the leaders failed to tie the conflict management interventionist ideas they glorified in Addis to their avowal to zero-tolerance of unconstitutional seizure of power and (for instance) make a bold statement on the situation in Central African Republic (CAR) where a renegade soldiers has since March sacked the democratically elected government of president Francois Bozize
A long-term plan targeting 2063? At a time when the continent’s challenges of peace and security have now seen intra-national African conflicts on the ascendancy.
Added to this are the new threats on hand: Insurgencies, terrorism, human trafficking, drugs, climate change adaptation and its impact on the security of nations.
That new threats embody environmental sustainability cannot be overemphasized. So African leaders need to interrogate for instance the submission by the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) to the effect that the armed tension and insurgency vulnerability that led to the big bloodbath in Baga, northern Nigeria is linked with the drying lake Chad in Nigeria’s north east which has resulted in the exasperating need for new jobs.
The pressure exerted by unemployment has clearly exacerbated environmental sustainability and has now thrown up food security issues as well.
Merely resolving in their summit resolutions to address the root causes of conflicts, put an end to impunity and strengthen national and continental judicial institutions and accountability in line with the collective responsibility to the principle of non-indifference is seen by observers as inadequate given the exigency of the situation.
But even as the leaders did not pronounce sufficiently on the matter of security sustainability, they did not want to lose out of making a history of the moment.
They proclaimed a new focus that would see the continent taking its destiny in its hands in self sufficiency, peace and security as well as inter-regional trade, determined not to bequeath the burden of conflicts to the next generation of Africans.
Economic experts have always urged not just the banishing of conflicts but also the creation of an economically sovereign continent. At the turn of the Millennium Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $600 billion.
Today it is $2.2 trillion. But adjusted for inflation, Africa’s GDP has doubled in 10 years while Sub Sahara Africa’s economic size has now doubled. Burgeoning conflicts have however continued to take the steam away from the road to more economic progress.
Besides, about 14 million of the continent’s our youth are entering the labour market each year and cannot find a decent job.
Before the summit proper, the AU Executive Council had adopted the strategic plan (2014-2017) alongside the year 2014 budget amounting to $380 million.
The strategic plan is constituted of eight priorities meant to address challenges in peace, stability and governance, growth and transformation, regional integration through the achievement of the Continental Free Trade Area by 2017, innovation, harnessing human and natural resources, mainstreaming women and youth etc”
As if to make up for the things unsaid and expectations unmet, they raised an instrument to deal with the recurrent and emerging sources of conflict including piracy, narco-human trafficking, all forms of extremism including terrorism, trans-national organized crime and missing no opportunity to push forward the agenda of conflict prevention, peacemaking, peace support, national reconciliation and post-conflict reconstruction and development. Among others.
Addressing the global media in this regard, the Chairperson of the AU authority of heads of state Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn said “We (African leaders) should take care of our own business by ourselves.
We should not be waiting for handouts. We will now take care of all our programmes (security, economic integration and trade) etc, ourselves”
In a world now charged by nuclear proliferation and threats, the leaders also committed a nuclear-free Africa and called for global nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and peaceful use of energy while undertaking the effective implementation of agreements on landmines and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons.
Chairperson of the AU Commission Dr. Nkosazana Zuma who also fielded questions jointly with the Ethiopian leader said the report of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), African Standby Force (ASF) as well as the panel on the Wise would guide the next steps for peace and security on the continent.
Interestingly, she said the leaders were pleased with the post 2015 development agenda ‘s report brought in By Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
The African development Bank (ADB) had identified issues such as Urbanization, the Growing Natural Resource Industry and ability to leapfrog technology, climate change and food security and infrastructure as critical towards transiting to an economically stable continent.
What does this mean for development experts? How has conflict burgeoning and feeble resolution of same taken steam away from the development process?
The peace making work of the AU has left many ordinary Africans skeptical of its ability to impose its solutions to conflicts. Even if the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) does often mediate behind the scenes, it has struggled to communicate its role in the conflicts plaguing the continent.
Now, where was the PSC in Mali, for example, when France intervened militarily earlier this year? Its sidelining during the Libyan crisis in 2011 and almost total absence that year during the Arab Spring that engulfed North Africa indicated the limits of the AU’s capacity to play a role in conflicts.
A development expert professor Oshita Oshita of the institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) in Abuja says the way forward is for the leaders to answer the puzzle: “Is this far too soon for a change of emphasis for the AU, with economic development in so many countries still being held back by political conflict (e.g. Zimbabwe and Côte d’Ivoire); strife from militant groups (e.g. Mali and Nigeria); and coup leaders who fail to leave office (e.g. Madagascar)?
Further to this, human rights activists including ISS consultant Liesl Louw-Vaudran have also emphasised the need for the AU to step up its efforts to ensure individuals in Africa have regional or continental recourse to justice if they do not have faith in their governments to protect them.
The African Court on Human and People’s Rights and regional courts like the Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice and the Southern African Development Community Tribunal in Namibia still do not sufficiently provide for this.
The AU’s lackluster support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) is also seen as hampering the fight against impunity.
As the world looks forward to another summit in Addis, one of the issues that seems bypassed now is the fact that today, the AU has forces in Somalia and Darfur and is backing the individual member states’ action in Mali. Yet an African High Command is not floated many years after it was envisaged.
That kind of pan African solidarity force is now needed so to take the lead in flattening the continent’s flash points such as what emerged in Mali this year without the odium of a meddlesome intervention of colonial France.
Thirty-two countries including Nigeria founded the OAU in 1963. (AU emerged from its ashes in July 11 2000 following the adoption of the Act of the African Union). Now, South Africa that is steadily now asserting itself in the scheme of things became the 53rd member in 1994 after the first multi-racial elections that ushered in Madiba Nelson Mandela. South Sudan became the 54th state after independence on July 9 2011.
It is in order to build on the economic sustainability already unfolded at the summit that a meeting of the continent’s finance Ministers to discuss a bold new proposal of an Africa Infrastructure Fund and a Special Purpose was held in Marrakech, Morocco penultimate week.
It was billed among others as a Vehicle to raise money in the markets for high return infrastructure projects that will help Africa to unlock her potential.
But as it is often said: “The sleeping giant is still on its way” Beyond the question of leadership from Nigeria, when would Africa finally help the world to abandon that sometimes-patronising look at the continent?
Leave a Reply