African leaders have gathered in Addis Ababa for the African Union 2023 summit, an annual event aimed at addressing the continent’s most pressing challenges, which include armed conflict and a worsening food crisis. The two-day African Union (AU) meeting in Ethiopia seeks to jumpstart a faltering trade deal and accelerate a free-trade pact launched in 2020. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) aims to boost the current 15% trade between African nations to 60% by 2034 with the elimination of almost all tariffs. However, its implementation has encountered hurdles, including disagreements over tariff reductions and border closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
African Union 2023 Summit: topics
At the summit, the leaders will focus on achieving ceasefires in the Sahel and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where armed groups have seized swaths of territory and sparked a diplomatic dispute between Kinshasa and Rwanda, which is accused of backing the rebels. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged African nations to take “action for peace” to combat rising violence and promote democratic freedoms on the continent.
The AU has long been criticized as ineffectual, and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is due to present a report on the reform of AU institutions. He has been urging the AU to implement major reforms for years, including a push towards financial independence, with the bloc largely dependent on foreign donors.
Military-run nations like Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea, which have been suspended from the AU, cannot participate in the summit. However, diplomats of the three Sahel nations are in Addis Ababa to push for readmission.
The African Union 2023 summit also seeks to address the rising number of displaced people in Africa, which has increased more than 15% over the past year, according to United Nations figures. The AU Peace and Security Commissioner Bankole Adeoye is expected to try to rally support for a proposal for new financing of security operations from the United States, African Union members, and the European Union. Financing has been a perennial challenge for AU initiatives like its peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Heads of state will also be briefed on fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and the security situations in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Sudan, which all experienced military takeovers in 2021 and 2022.
