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African leaders agreed to improve economic
governance and work harder to end regional
conflicts and the spread of AIDS. They asserted
that peace and stability are the basic
conditions for ensuring Africa's harmonious and
sustainable development |
Heads of state gathered in Maputo, Mozambique
from
7-12 July 2003 for the African Union
summit. New leaders responsible for the
day-to-day running of the organisation
were
elected. The assembly appointed seven
commissioners, five women and two men, to the AU
Commission, which has
a similar role to that of
the European Commission. Former
Malian president Konare will head the commission and
Patrick Mazimhaka, Rwanda's minister for the
Great Lakes region, will be his deputy. The
newly elected team, with representatives from
all five regions in Africa, will take up their
positions in September 2003. The AU also
readmitted Madagascar, which was suspended in
2002.
Newly appointed AU chairperson Joachim Chissano,
the president of Mozambique, stated that Africa
would attract investors only once it achieved
peace. "At this assembly,
a consensus was
reached that peace and stability are basic
conditions for ensuring Africa's harmonious and
sustainable development," he stated. "It is
therefore incumbent on us to find a durable
solution to the situations of tension and
conflict still prevailing so as to transform
Africa into a region attracting investments."
The AU constitution, allows for interference in
wars involving crimes against humanity, and it
also supports a peer review mechanism, which
will enable leaders to evaluate each other's
performance in governance and democracy. The
organisation envisages a Pan African Parliament,
a court of justice and ultimately a common
African currency. A smaller project, the
New
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), is
designed
to boost social and economic
performance and ensure sound governance. It
envisages that this will lead to increased
investment, trade and aid from the developed
world.
African leaders have agreed to improve
economic governance and work harder to halt
regional conflicts and the spread of AIDS, the
new AU chairperson affirmed.
The summit placed defence matters and the
establishment of
a Peace and Security Council,
to tackle some 20 conflicts across the
continent, high on its agenda. This is the first
time that Africa will have a body able to
grapple with the wars and massacres that have
plagued the continent since independence
sabotaging its growth and development. The
council is loosely modelled on the United
Nations Security Council and will have the power
to deploy what will be called the African
Standby Force to intervene in wars involving
crimes against humanity.
The council is crucial
for Africa, which needs to show the rest
of the
world that it is capable of solving its own
problems.
The DRC has been ravaged by the war that erupted
in
August 1998, drawing in several surrounding
countries, including Burundi, whose troops
crossed the border to protect their own country
from rebels. As many as 3 million people died in
the conflict, many as a result of war induced
illness
and starvation. Financing remains one of
the biggest obstacles to Africa's efforts to
deal with its own conflicts. The leaders
welcomed a proposal by the European Union's
development commissioner, for EU members to
divert 1,5% of their
bilateral aid funds into a
peacekeeping fund of about
250 million (R2,1
billion) to help finance Africa's peacekeeping
efforts. UN secretary general,
Kofi Annan, told
African heads of state that the UN and the rest
of the international community can appoint
envoys, urge negotiations and spend billions of
dollars on peacekeeping missions, but none of
this will solve conflicts if the political will
and capacity do not exist in Africa.
Although peace remained an issue throughout the
summit in Mozambique, the red ribbon symbol of
the anti-HIV/AIDS campaign was almost as common
as the various national flags. The AU identified
AIDS as a top development enemy, and agreed to
harmonise the continent's response to tackling
it.
It will raise funds from internal sources
and donors for the war against AIDS. The first
ever international, open public forum with
African heads of state on HIV/AIDS, malaria and
tuberculosis was part of the official programme
the Global Forum on Health and Development.
It is an attempt to bring together African
heads of state and their international partners
to seal a joint commitment in scaling up action
against diseases that are major health, economic
and social problems throughout Africa, the
organisers stated.
The Mozambican Minister for Foreign Affairs said
that the session was not about securing
additional funds or coming up with another programme to fight HIV/AIDS, but was rather
an
opportunity for participants to share their
ideas and experiences regarding the disease. The
UN Secretary General called on leaders to take
the lead in the fight against the disease, while the UNAIDS executive director, shared
some shocking AIDS figures. Sixty million
Africans are either living with HIV, have died
of AIDS or have lost their parents to AIDS.
Fifty-eight per cent of those infected with the
disease in
sub-Saharan Africa are women. He also
warned that HIV/AIDS prevention programmes
target less than one in five people at risk of
infection. He pointed out that although
antiretrovirals are available to developing
countries, access to technical facilities and
sustainable financing are still major barriers
to their effective use. Despite the focus on
HIV/AIDS some critics warned that Africa's war
on AIDS appeared undermined by
the Libyan
president, Muamar Gadaffi, who played down the
seriousness
of the pandemic. |
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UN
Secretary General urges leaders to take AIDS
seriously. Africa Recovery Magazine |
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