African leaders have converged on Addis Ababa for an extra- ordinary summit of the continental body, the AU, with forging a coordinated approach to the various the coups and tackling COVID-19, high on the agenda.
The Commission Chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat told the continental leaders at the opening ceremony that the security situation in Africa required a new approach and called for “more active inter-African solidarity”.
Six coups have occured on the continent in the last eighteen months, most of which have occured in West Africa, and the notion is that sanctions slammed on the various junta in the affected countries have not yielded results to force the military to return to constitutional order.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed used his speech to call for a permanent seat for Africa on the U.N. Security Council and urged the AU to form a continental media house to counter what he called “negative media representation of Africa”.
The AU’s efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is also a talking point at the summit.
African nations only finally began receiving larger supplies by November last year after wealthier nations hoarded vaccines, and is is far behind global vaccination targets, most of which is caused by logistical challenges.
The African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is struggling to deal with continental challenges to tackling the pandemic with only eleven percent of the continent’s estimated one billion population so far vaccinated in the two years since Egypt, the first country in Africa, announced its first case almost two years ago.
Differences between members over the bloc’s relationship with Israel broke into the open at the ceremony.
Faki, the Commission’s top bureaucrat had defended his decision last year to unilaterally accept Israel’s request for observer status at the AU.
South Africa has criticized that move, and along with Nigeria, Algeria and a couple of other countries, and are pushing for the observer status to be revoked, according to an internal memo prepared for the summit and seen by Reuters.
A senior diplomat had said that the Democratic Republic of Congo, Morocco and several other countries however support Israel.
The conflict in Ethiopia, which hosts the A.U secretariat is also an issue with U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who addressed the leaders by video link, calling for a ceasefire in the Ethiopian conflict, which broke out in November 2020 and has killed thousands.
