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PREVIEW
Delegates will face a crowded agenda including boosting African representation in the global system and resolving multiple security crises
Arguments for more financial independence and a greater role for the AU and Africa's regional organisations in the international system will top the agenda at its summit from 17-20 February in Addis Ababa.
Concerns about the power of external funding of the African Union are multiplying as leaders try to avoid being drawn into Cold War-style rivalries.
Almost two-thirds of its programme funding comes from external sources, despite recent reform efforts.
Such pressures are clear from China-United States competition over the funding and management of the new African Centres for Disease Control in Addis Ababa (AC Vol 62 No 4, A question of control). This latest round of regional rivalries dates back to the grandiose Chinese-financed and built headquarters and the German-financed complex for the AU's Peace and Security Council.
In 2016, the AU established its Peace Fund aiming to raise at least US $400 million to finance a quarter of Africa's security missions. Now, member states are edging towards that target, having been slowed by pandemic economics and political fights over reform plans.
Such imperatives take on more relevance as funding for UN peacekeeping operations is shrinking. Yet the political and operational problems plaguing those UN operations in the Sahel, Congo-Kinshasa and South Sudan are growing.
Alongside that, leaders are to debate 'global political, financial and energy policy governance and the food crisis', noted the AU Secretariat in a pre-summit briefing. Part of that discussion will respond to the international support for permanent AU seat at the G20 (South Africa is already a member) and support from the US, France and Germany for a permanent African seat on the UN Security Council. But there are trade-offs such as the European Union's hardening line on migration and visas (Dispatches 7/2/23, Cuts in aid and trade on table as European leaders mull tougher action on migration).
On economics, AU and national officials will be discussing strategy with the African Development Bank over how AU can expand continental representation at the IMF and World Bank and their plans to boost concessional financing capacity. That will also touch on the struggle to raise finance for the region's green energy transition and its deepening concerns about the human and financial costs of climate change (AC Vol 63 No 24, Geopolitical fault lines).
That leaves little time for the designated theme of the summit: the 'accelerated implementation' of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Its launch delayed for a year by the pandemic, Africa's plan for a continental single market was initially blown off course by the reordering of global trade routes and supply chains triggered by the global health emergency.
Africa has taken a second hit over the last year with spiralling food and energy prices, part of the spillover from Russia's war in Ukraine. Africa's oil and gas producers, as well as fertiliser producers such as Morocco, South Africa and Nigeria, are gleaning some benefit. But much work is still to be done, including the take-off of the Dangote Group's mammoth fertiliser plants and oil refinery on the fringes of Lagos state.
In parallel to these pan-African economic strategy discussions, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa is to chair the Peace and Security Council sessions at the summit which will include debate on key national and regional issues: peace-building and monitoring in post-war Ethiopia; encouraging an accord between Egypt, Sudan and Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile Waters; dampening tensions between Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda over the latter's backing for the M23 militia; peace building in Central African Republic where Rwandan troops and fighters from Russia's mercenary Wagner Group are shoring up Bangui's armed forces.
Civic activists in Chad and Sudan are also demanding the AU play a more robust role in pressing for transitions to elections and civil rule. Deteriorating conditions in the Sahel as jihadist fighters expand territory under their control with the military juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso struggling to respond effectively, despite backing from the Russia's Wagner Group.
Another concern of the military juntas in West Africa is for the lifting of their suspension from the AU which was imposed automatically after their overtrhrow of constitutional governments. But the main negotiations on concessions there will run through the regional body, the Economic Community of West African States which is pressuring the military rulers to speed up their promised return to civil rule.
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