African leaders convened on February 18, 2023, for the two-day African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to address a host of issues facing the continent, including deadly violence in the Sahel, a record drought in the Horn, the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the faltering free trade pact. The AU summit brought together more than 30 presidents and prime ministers, with most of the sessions held behind closed doors at the AU headquarters.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged African leaders to do more to bring peace to conflict-hit regions of Africa, highlighting the enormous tests facing the continent on virtually every front. Guterres expressed his deep concern about the recent rise in violence by armed groups in the eastern DRC and the rise of terrorist groups in the Sahel and elsewhere, noting that the mechanisms for peace were faltering. Nevertheless, he urged the bloc to continue to battle for peace.
At the mini-summit held on February 17, 2023, the leaders of the seven-nation East African Community called for all armed groups to withdraw from occupied areas in the eastern DRC by the end of next month. Guterres also met with several African leaders, including Rwandan President Paul Kagame, to discuss the crisis in the Congo.
The AU summit also aimed to accelerate the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) launched in 2020. The AfCFTA is the biggest deal 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.
However, the implementation of the AfCFTA has fallen well short of that goal, running into hurdles such as disagreements over tariff reductions and border closures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The leaders also discussed the food crises that are affecting Africa, with the 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.
Junta-ruled Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea, which have been suspended from the AU, cannot participate in the summit, but have sent diplomats to Addis Ababa to lobby for readmission. Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Union Commission, told the meeting that the bloc needed to come up with new strategies to counter the backsliding of democracy on the continent.
Faki said that “sanctions imposed on member states following unconstitutional changes of government… do not seem to produce the expected results,” and it seems necessary to reconsider the system of resistance to the unconstitutional changes in order to make it more effective.
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 criticized as ineffectual. Rwandan President 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.
Kagame 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.
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