African leaders were due to meet yesterday for their annual summit, with conflict topping the agenda, especially Nigeria’s Islamic insurgency group Boko Haram, as well as efforts to stem Ebola.
While the official theme of the African Union (AU) meeting is scheduled to be women’s empowerment, leaders from the 54-member bloc are once again beset by a string of crises across the continent.
Preparatory talks this week ahead of the two-day meeting at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa have seen promises by AU Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to drum up “collective African efforts” to tackle Boko Haram.
Photo: AFP
On Thursday, the AU Peace and Security Council called for a regional five-nation force of 7,500 troops to be deployed to stop the “horrendous” rise of the extremist group.
More than 13,000 people have been killed and more than one million made homeless by Boko Haram violence since 2009.
Leaders are also expected to elect Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as AU chairman, replacing AU Chairman and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.
Mugabe, a former liberation war hero who at 90 is Africa’s oldest president and the third-longest-serving leader, is deeply respected by many on the continent.
However, he is also subject to travel bans from both the US and EU in protest at political violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe.
With over a dozen elections due to take place this year across Africa, the focus at the talks is to also be on how to ensure peaceful polls. African think tank the Institute for Security Studies said that “many of these are being held in a context that increases the risk of political violence.”
Wars in South Sudan and the Central African Republic — both nations scheduled to hold elections — as well as in Libya are also scheduled for debate.
South Sudan’s warring parties met on Thursday in the latest push for a lasting peace deal, with six previous ceasefire commitments never holding for more than a few days — and sometime just hours. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan during more than a year of civil war.
Also topping the agenda is the question of financing regional forces, amid broader debates on funding the AU, a thorny issue for the bloc, once heavily bankrolled by late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi..
African leaders are also set to discuss the economic recovery of countries affected by Ebola, setting up a “solidarity fund” and planning a proposed African Center for Disease Control.
The worst outbreak of Ebola in history has seen nearly 9,000 deaths in a year — almost all of them in the three west African countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — and sparked a major health scare worldwide.
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