President William Ruto with Presidents Azali Assoumani (Comoros, immediate left), Umaro Embaló (Guinea-Bissau, immediate right), Taye Selassie (Ethiopia, left), John Mahama (Ghana, second right) and AUC Chairperson Moussa Faki (right) pose for a photograph during the Retreat of the Extended Bureau on the Implementation of the Institutional Reforms of the African Union at State House, Nairobi. Also in attendance were Deputy President Kindiki Kithure, Foreign Affairs CS Musalia Mudavadi and their respective national counterparts.
African leaders have laid out an ambitious reforms plan for the African Union (AU), focusing on peace, security, and financial independence to transform the continent into a powerhouse of development and stability.
In a landmark retreat of the extended bureau of the African Union institutional reforms chaired by President William Ruto in his capacity as the champion of the AU reforms on Monday at State House, Nairobi, leaders identified key priority areas, including the operationalisation of the Africa Court of Justice to enhance conflict resolution on the continent.
President Ruto said they agreed on a committee of five to drive the implementation of the already agreed reforms of the different agencies, institutions and organs.
The meeting featured Presidents Azali Assoumani (Comoros), Umaro Sissoco Embalo, (Guinea Bissau), John Dramani Mahama (Ghana) and Taye Atske Selassie (Ethiopia), chairman of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamatand Kenya’s Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who is also the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary.
“We agreed that for a continent with as much potential as Africa, with a population of 1.4 billion people, with the highest resources of energy and natural resources, with the demographic dividend being the youngest continent, a continent that will probably have 25 percent of the world's workforce in the next 20 years or 25 years,” he said.
“For a continent that will be the largest single market by 2050, with the resources in food production and many other natural resources, it becomes absolutely necessary that stability, peace and security become a solid cornerstone of the Africa we imagine into the future,” the president said.
He noted that it was necessary for Africa Union to “reimagine, rethink, reorganise our peace and security architecture.”
“As things stand today, Africa is a big theater of conflict and, unfortunately, terrorism. And our response has been uncoordinated, under-sourced and not very well planned,” he said.
The president said that the retreat recommended that “a high-level panel interrogate our peace and security infrastructure, including the envoys across the continent, the infrastructure around the Africa Union Commission, the Peace and Security Fund, and also the effects of Resolution, 29, 17, that now makes it possible for African-led peace efforts to be funded by the United Nations with the resolution of the United Nations Security Council.”
In agreeing to ensure operationalisation of the Africa Court of Justice, President Ruto said he would make a recommendation to ensure the appointment of judges so that by “June this year we can have a mechanism for conflict resolution in our continent.”
He said this move would ensure disputes between countries, institutions of the Africa Union, and a reference for the tribunals that currently exist are addressed.
“It is a very important forum that we have engaged in that will go all the way to a presentation on the Pan-African Parliament to make it much more accountable; to agree on the election process of members of the Pan-African Parliament; to look at the responsibility of the Pan-African Parliament to enact modern laws that will serve the greater interest of the continent and support institutions like the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.”
The AU reforms champion said this would also provide a mechanism for accountability for the continent and as a union that holds the executive and agencies to account, and to provide for a budget-making process as well as approvals for purposes of accountability.
“A fit-for-purpose Africa Union is a necessary imperative at this point in time if the African Union has to play the role and speak for the 1.4 billion Africans,” Dr Ruto said.
The retreat, the President said, also reflected extensively on the burden of regional conflicts and threats of terrorism in Africa.
“It is without a doubt that conflict remains a major obstacle to Africa's development. It must be confronted and with all the capabilities and urgency that this continent can master. I welcome this retreat's focus on rebooting Africa's peace architecture by establishing a panel of experts to propose modalities for strengthening the continent's current conflict response and financing mechanisms,” added president Ruto.
“Only when Africa can decisively address the conflicts within our soil, including the ongoing grave developments in eastern DRC and the Sudan, can it stand proud of its liberation. It is for this reason that we have agreed under the framework of the East African Community to convene an urgent extraordinary meeting and summit on the situation in eastern DRC on Wednesday. I have consulted with heads of state from the East African Community and beyond and we are all in agreement that now more than ever it is an existential issue not just for the people of eastern DRC but for this region.”
The situation in eastern DRC, he noted, demands “our collective focus and as the chair of the East African Community, I will be convening this meeting as I have said.”
