Wars, government overthrows, terrorism, unemployment, draught, democratic backsliding, ethnic violence, poverty, humanitarian crises, rampant government corruption, the list of the major challenges facing the African continent is long. The African Union (AU) is supposed to be a forum where African countries should be able to work together to collectively solve many of these issues faced within Africa. However, it’s safe to say that the African Union has not been effective in its role.
In the face of many of these crises around the continent, the African Union is nowhere to be seen. The reality is that the African Union has largely become an irrelevant institution. At this stage, it has become more a forum for meaningless discussions and statements, rather than acting as any kind of real decision making body. It has become nothing more than a photography session for African leaders, rather than a body where any meaningful action is taken.
This is not because of a failure in implementing goals and action, because in order for the AU to be ineffective at implementing its actions, it would need to first make an attempt at taking action. The African Union is in this current impotent state because African leaders want it to be that way. they benefit from keeping the body in its current state without any real power or authority.
Now, why would African leaders want to keep the African Union in this impotent state? Well, it’s the same reason for many of the problems faced by the continent in general. It’s because they are more interested in holding onto their positions of power than implementing any policies that would actually improve the lives of Africans.
That is the reason the AU doesn’t have any real power or authority; because if it did the high levels of corruption in many governments might actually be thwarted or even worse, politicians may actually be compelled to do things for their constituents, which simply would be asking too much of them.
Exactly how ineffectual is the AU currently? Moussa Faki Mahamat, the AU Commission chairperson himself, expressed his frustrations with the inability of the Union to take function effectively, in a speech following an AU summit in February 2024. According to the Conversation, around 93% of decisions made by the African Union had failed to be implemented over 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Unlike in the European Union, for example where the European Commission and the European Parliament, actually have the power to pass binding resolutions that must be adhered to by member states; the AU Commission and the Pan-African Parliament doesn’t have any real power whatsoever. Much of the decision-making authority of the African Union lies in the Assembly, composed of the heads of state and government, which are largely uninterested in making any change to the current ineffectual nature of the Union.
AU’s inaction amidst war across Africa
The most blatant example of the AU’s lack of relevance is in Sudan and the humanitarian crises that has befallen the Sudanese people. Mediation efforts to solve the conflict have largely been led by the United States and Gulf countries. The aid that has been coming in for the Sudanese refugees have largely come from abroad. Alarms over a potential genocide taking place in the Darfur region have been raised, however the AU has largely sat back and watched this humanitarian disaster unfold.
So many wars and conflicts are taking place around the continent at this very moment, where the African Union’s presence has been virtually non-existent. Over that last decade, countries within the Sahel Region have effectively been in a perpetual state of War against terrorist organisations operating in the region, without any real support from the African Union. In countries such as Burkina Faso, armed groups have had at different stages managed to control around half of the country’s sovereign territory; where has the African Union been to help the people of Burkina Faso?
As a result of this insecurity, we have seen a wave of political instability arise following numerous coups across nations within the Sahel Region. So much so, the Sahel region has been referred to as the “Coup Belt” by some members of the International media. However, amidst this wave of political instability, the AU has so far only had words of condemnation for the states that fall to government overthrows.
In Ethiopia, the country that hosts the headquarters of the African Union, a devastating civil war took place for two whole years from November 2020 to November 2022. The war, between the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian Defence Forces, allegedly saw as many as half a million people killed as a result, making it among the deadliest wars in modern history. It had been reported that war crimes had taken place on both sides against civilian populations.
To think that such a brutal conflict could happen in the very country that hosts the African Union headquarters, shows how ineffectual and irrelevant the organisation really is. What even is the point of the African Union if it cannot work to prevent or bring an end to conflict within member states?
Do we really even need an African Union?
I don’t think it would be unreasonable to ponder whether or not the African Union is truly needed. The reality is that, perhaps other than singing the AU anthem during gatherings, the African Union lacks any kind of relevance in much of our lives.
The reality is that, the idea of leaders from all over the continent coming together and agreeing on any kind of principals or actions was always a stretch. The differences in cultures and belief systems within many of our own countries are already a major obstacle to effective governance; how would we expect an entire continent to fare any better?
