The 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) will take place next Sunday and Monday (February 10-11) at the African Union Headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. The Summit will be held under the theme “The Year of Refugees, Returnees, and Internally Displaced Persons: Towards Durable Solutions to Forced Displacement in Africa”. Speakers at the Opening Session of the Assembly will be Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda and Chairperson of the African Union; Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt who takes over the AU Chair; Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission; Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary General of the Arab League; Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations; and Mahmoud Abbas; President of the State of Palestine.
The Summit has been preceded by the 37th session of the Permanent Representatives Committee last month which prepared the agenda for this week’s 34th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union, of AU Foreign Ministers on Thursday and Friday (February 7-8). The Executive Committee finalizes the agenda for the Assembly sessions on which we will report next week. Ethiopia’s high-level delegation was headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu.
In his opening remarks, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat said “This session of the Executive Council is held just days before the 100th anniversary of the first Pan-African Congress,” adding:” in a few months we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Sirte Declaration, which laid the foundation for the transformation of the OAU into an African Union”. It is particularly appropriate, therefore, that this Summit will also see the unveiling of a statue of Emperor Haile Selassie in recognition of his role in the foundation in 1963 of the Organization of African Unity, later transformed into African Union. The AU has already recognized the place of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana with a statue at the AU’s headquarters; now it is adding a statue of Emperor Haile Selassie who provided the “statesmanship and the pragmatic evaluation of what was possible at the time to get Africans together to achieve what has always been the dream of Pan Africanists – the creation of OAU”. The statue will be inaugurated during the Summit in the presence of the leaders of many African leaders.
Among other events during the Summit, the 2019 African Economic Outlook Report was presented by the African Development Bank and African Union Commission on Friday (February 8). The theme of this year’s African Economic Outlook is “Integration for Africa’s Economic Prosperity.” It highlights economic prospects and projections for Africa as a whole as well as for each country offering short- and medium-term forecasts of the major socio-economic factors, as well as looking at challenges and progress.
The AU Commission (AUC), African Risk Capacity (ARC), African Development Bank (AfDB) and UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on Saturday (February 9) are hosting a high-level side-line meeting on Migration and Displacement in Africa, under the theme “Migration and Displacement in Africa: Addressing the underlying causes through innovative risk financing mechanisms”. The African Risk Capacity (ARC) Agency, a specialized agency of the AU, was established in 2012 to help Member States better plan, prepare and respond to extreme weather events and other natural disasters, protecting the food security and livelihoods of their most vulnerable populations. It is one of the innovative mechanisms which have been established to address the underlying causes of migrations, notably natural disasters and extreme weather events. The African Development Bank (AfDB) has designed the Africa Disaster Risk Financing Facility (ADRiFi) to expand access to ARC’s risk transfer facilities. This meeting will highlight the interdependency of migration, food security and climate change and discuss the ADRiFi program.
Another side-line meeting for African Heads of State and Government, business leaders and global health organizations on Saturday will be the “Africa Leadership Meeting: Investing in Health,” a new initiative to help deliver increased, sustained and more impactful financing for health across Africa by increasing commitments for health and accelerating a path towards Universal Healthcare Coverage. The meeting will be chaired by President Kagame of Rwanda; and current Chair, African Union and AIDS Watch Africa. Other speakers will include Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and Bill Gates, Co-Chair, of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
