2015-01-29 09:45:00

Where the African Union wants Africa to be in 50 years from now


Africa, 50 years from now: Agenda 2063

Africa wants to do things differently but something always seems to crop-up and disrupt efforts. It was like that with Pan-Africanism, the African renaissance of the 1990s, NEPAD and the Arab spring of North Africa to mention but a few movements of promise that could have been more –much more.

In 2013, the African Union (AU) clocked fifty years. Celebrating the jubilee, African leaders mooted a plan called “Agenda 2063.”  With this, African leaders hope to work towards a paradigm shift in the next 50 years.

“Agenda 2063” is an approach to how the continent should effectively learn from lessons of the past, build on the progress now underway and harness all possible opportunities available so as to ensure positive socio-economic transformation within the next 50 years (by 2063).

At the heart of this new roadmap (Agenda 2063) is an attempt to rekindle the passion for Pan-Africanism, a sense of unity, self-reliance, integration and solidarity that heralded the African independence movements of the 1960s.

In line with the Agenda 2063 vision, the 24th AU summit for heads of state and government which starts Friday 30 January in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia has plans to focus on the theme: “2015 –Year of Women’s empowerment and development towards Africa’s Agenda 2063.”

The idea of the theme is probably to get away (for a change) from the usual discussions of conflict, war, famine, disease, ICC, hunger, endless military juntas and focus on something with potential to positively impact the continent. African Women have great potential to bring about change in Africa hence the theme. Women in Africa constitute 52% of the continent’s population and their potential and contribution has more or less remained untapped.

It remains to be seen if the AU summit will find time to focus on women empowerment. This is because the usual crises and emergencies of hunger, war and famine are busy at the door clamouring for attention and could disrupt the planned agenda of the AU leaders.

Boko Haram and the AU

Top on the list is Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist insurgents and their violent campaign now threatening to engulf the entire Sahel region. Amidst Nigeria’s assertions that it can handle Boko Haram, the AU is keen to table for discussion a proposal for a regional military force that would comprise soldiers from Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Chad and Cameroon. Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said this week that she was deeply horrified by the violence of Boko Haram. She warned that insurgents were a threat to the whole continent.

Then there is the war in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Al Shabaab in Somalia, the forgotten conflict of Darfur not to mention Libya now slowly descending into chaos.

Ebola

The Ebola emergency is another area African leaders cannot ignore.

With close to 9,000 deaths in one year due to Ebola and the attendant social and economic consequences, the Ebola epidemic merits and demands the attention of Africa’s leaders.  

The Ebola outbreak was first reported in December 2013 in Guinea. In 2014, it went on to become the worst that has ever been experienced since the first Congo Ebola outbreak of 1976. The Ebola epidemic overstretched the capacity of the three AU member states namely, Guinea Sierra Leone and Liberia due to little funding of the health sector in national budgets.

Though modest by global standards, the response of the AU to the Ebola crisis has been commendable. In August 2014, the AU released One million dollars from the Union’s Special Emergency Assistance Fund for Drought and Famine. It also authorised the immediate deployment of an AU-led Military and Civilian Humanitarian Mission. Later, the AU deployed volunteers under the newly created African Union Support To Ebola In West Africa (ASEOWA).  ASEOWA volunteers comprised epidemiologists, clinicians, public health specialists and communications personnel.

As the Ebola disease is being contained, there is now need for assistance to the affected West African nations whose economies are on the verge of collapse due to Ebola.

Mugabe for AU Chair

Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe is set to be elected new AU chair for the next one year at this summit. Others think the AU could do without the controversy which Mugabe attracts.

Women Empowerment

In all, the women of Africa will be watching with bated breath that the main theme of the Summit, “Women’s empowerment and development” is not relegated to the margins of the summit.

(Fr. Paul Samasumo)

e-mail: engafrica@vatiradio.va

 








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