African Union Holds Annual Meeting

The 50th Anniversary Summit of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in May, 2013. (Flickr/US Department of State)

Ethiopia hosted the annual African Union (AU) summit from February 17 to February 19 in Addis Ababa. The gathering came as the continent faces economic challenges while trying to stem violence and political instability. There was also controversy when an Israeli diplomat was thrown out of the conference despite Israel’s status as an observer. 

The biggest economic focus of the conference was trying to strengthen the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which seeks to eliminate most tariffs on trade between African countries to increase overall income by $450 billion by 2035. Fifty-four nations have signed the agreement, but high inflation rates and slow growth during the pandemic have resulted in the agreement being implemented slowly. At the summit, the members released a document highlighting their goals for the coming year, including further development of an adjustment fund to support countries that will struggle with the loss in tariff revenue that comes with the agreement. 

Another major item on the group's agenda was political stability. The AU suspended Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea since military juntas seized power in all three countries. Despite the countries' requests to be reinstated, the AU upheld the suspensions. Bankole Adeoye, the head of the Peace and Security Council, said the decision "reaffirmed zero tolerance against unconstitutional government changes."

Conflict played a major role at the conference. Participants focused on attempts to resolve the continued fighting between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and M23 rebels, who the DRC accuses of being actively supported by the Rwandan military. The summit’s primary accomplishment was an understanding that the two countries must pursue dialogue to settle the conflict, while more work needs to be done to clarify the role of organizations like the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC. In a mini-summit, members of the East African Community—Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, South Sudan, and Uganda—urged armed groups to withdraw from the DRC within the next month.

However, the summit's most controversial moment was a shocking rebuke of a non-African nation. On the summit's first day, video footage showed security guards escorting out an Israeli diplomat. Israel was granted observer status at the AU in 2021, which generated strong negative reactions from South Africa and Algeria. A commission has been created to determine whether or not to withdraw Israel's observer status, but it did not meet this year. The situation was further complicated by a statement from an AU official, who said that the reason for the removal was that the AU had sent a non-transferrable invite to Israel's ambassador to the AU and not the lower-level diplomat who attended. It remains unclear whether Israel's observer status had been changed.

The summit's closing remarks were delivered by Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission. In his remarks, he expressed a desire for increased intra-African solidarity and fighting against military coups. He also celebrated 60 years of the African Union and its predecessor organization, the Organization of African Unity, and looked forward to the next 60 years of increased cooperation on the continent.