The African Union

The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the African Union. The bloc was founded on 26 May 2001 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and launched on 9 July 2002 in Durban, South Africa. The intention of the AU was to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa by 32 signatory governments; the OAU was disbanded on 9 July 2002. The most important decisions of the AU are made by the Assembly of the African Union, a semi-annual meeting of the heads of state and government of its member states.

The AU's secretariat, the African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa. The largest city in the AU is Lagos, Nigeria, while the largest urban agglomeration is Cairo, Egypt. The African Union has more than 1.3 billion people and an area of around and includes popular world landmarks, such as the Sahara and the Nile. The primary working languages are Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swahili. Within the African Union, there are official bodies, such as the Peace and Security Council and the Pan-African Parliament.

Overview

The objectives of the AU are the following:

# To achieve greater unity, cohesion and solidarity between the African countries and African nations.
# To defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States.
# To accelerate the political and social-economic integration of the continent.
# To promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples.
# To encourage international cooperation, taking due account of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
# To promote peace, security, and stability on the continent.
# To promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance.
# To promote and protect human and peoples' rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other relevant human rights instruments.
# To establish the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations.
# To promote sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies.
# To promote co-operation in all fields of human activity to raise the living standards of African people.
# To coordinate and harmonise the policies between the existing and future Regional Economic Communities for the gradual attainment of the objectives of the Union.
# To advance the development of the continent by promoting research in all fields, in particular in science and technology.
# To work with relevant international partners in the eradication of preventable diseases and the promotion of good health on the continent.

The African Union is made up of both political and administrative bodies. The highest decision-making organ is the Assembly of the African Union, made up of all the heads of state or government of member states of the AU. The Assembly is chaired by Félix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The AU also has a representative body, the Pan-African Parliament, which consists of 265 members elected by the national legislatures of the AU member states. Its president is Roger Nkodo Dang.

Other political institutions of the AU include:

* the Executive Council, made up of foreign ministers, which prepares decisions for the Assembly;
* the Permanent Representatives Committee, made up of the ambassadors to Addis Ababa of AU member states; and
* the Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), a civil society consultative body.

The AU Commission, the secretariat to the political structures, is chaired by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa. On 15 July 2012, Dlamini-Zuma won a tightly contested vote to become the first female head of the African Union Commission, replacing Jean Ping.

Other AU structures are hosted by different member states:

* the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights is based in Banjul, the Gambia; and
* the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and APRM Secretariats and the Pan-African Parliament are in Midrand, South Africa.

The AU's first military intervention in a member state was the May 2003 deployment of a peacekeeping force of soldiers from South Africa, Ethiopia, and Mozambique to Burundi to oversee the implementation of the various agreements. AU troops were also deployed in the Sudan for peacekeeping during the Darfur Conflict, before the mission was handed over to the United Nations on 1 January 2008 via UNAMID. The AU has also sent a peacekeeping mission to Somalia, consisting of troops from Uganda and Burundi.

The AU has adopted a number of important new documents establishing norms at continental level, to supplement those already in force when it was created. These include the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003), the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (2007), the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and its associated Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance.

History

The historical foundations of the African Union originated in the First Congress of Independence African States, held in Accra, Ghana, from 15 to 22 April 1958. The conference aimed at forming the Africa Day, to mark the liberation movement each year concerning the willingness of the African people to free themselves from foreign dictatorship, as well as subsequent attempts to unite Africa, including the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was established on 25 May 1963, and the African Economic Community in 1981. Critics argued that the OAU in particular did little to protect the rights and liberties of African citizens from their own political leaders, often dubbing it the "Dictators' Club".

The idea of creating the AU was revived in the mid-1990s under the leadership of Libyan head of state Muammar al-Gaddafi: the heads of state and government of the OAU issued the Sirte Declaration (named after Sirte, in Libya) on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of an African Union. The Declaration was followed by summits at Lomé in 2000, when the Constitutive Act of the African Union was adopted, and at Lusaka in 2001, when the plan for the implementation of the African Union was adopted. During the same period, the initiative for the establishment of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), was also established.

The African Union was launched in Durban on 9 July 2002, by its first chairperson, Former south African head of state Thabo Mbeki, at the first session of the Assembly of the African Union. The second session of the Assembly was in Maputo in 2003, and the third session in Addis Ababa on 6 July 2004.

Since 2010, the African Union eyes the establishment of a joint African space agency.

Barack Obama was the first-ever sitting United States president to speak in front of the African Union in Addis Ababa, on 29 July 2015. With his speech, he encouraged the world to increase economic ties via investments and trade with the continent, and lauded the progresses made in education, infrastructure and economy. But he also criticised a lack of democracy and leaders who refuse to step down, discrimination against minorities (including LGBT people, religious groups and ethnicities) and corruption. He suggested an intensified democratisation and free trade, to significantly increase living quality for Africans.

Treaties

Geography

Member states of the African Union cover almost the entirety of continental Africa, except for several territories held by Spain (Ceuta, Melilla, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera). In addition, European countries have dependencies among the offshore islands of Africa: Spain (the Canary Islands and the islands of the plazas de soberanía); France (Mayotte, Réunion, and the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean); Portugal (the Azores, Madeira, and the Savage Islands); and the United Kingdom (Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha). Consequently, the geography of the African Union is wildly diverse, including the world's largest hot desert (the Sahara), huge jungles and savannas, and the world's longest river (the Nile).

The AU has an area of , with of coastline. The vast majority of this area is on continental Africa, while the only significant territories off the mainland are the island of Madagascar (the world's largest microcontinent and fourth-largest island) and the Sinai Peninsula (geographically a part of Asia), accounting for slightly less than 2% of the total area.

Demographics

Population

The total population of the African Union, , is estimated at more than 1.25 billion, with a growth rate of more than 2.5% p.a.

Languages

The official languages of the African Union are Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, and "any other African language". The primary working languages of the African Union are English and French. To a lesser extent Portuguese and Arabic are used. The Constitutive Act, for example, is written in English, French and Arabic, while the protocol amending the Constitutive Act is written in English, French and Portuguese. As of 2020, the AU website is available in its entirety in English, partially in French and minimally in Arabic. Portuguese and Swahili versions were added as "coming soon" (''em breve'') in April 2019.

According to the Constitutive Act of the African Union,

A protocol amending the Constitutive Act was adopted in 2003 and as of April 2020 has been ratified by 30 of the 37 member states needed for a two-thirds majority. It would change the above wording to,

Founded in 2001 under the auspices of the AU, the African Academy of Languages promotes the usage and perpetuation of African languages among African people. In 2004 Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique addressed the assembly in Swahili, but had to translate his words himself. The AU declared 2006 the Year of African Languages. 2006 also marked Ghana's 55th anniversary since it founded the Bureau of Ghana Languages originally known as Gold Coast Vernacular Literature Bureau.

Member states

All UN member states based in Africa and on African islands are members of the AU, as is the partially recognized state of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the Western Sahara, withdrew from the Organisation of African Unity in 1984 due to the admission of the SADR as a member. On 30 January 2017, the AU readmitted Morocco as a member state. Somaliland's 2005 application to join the AU is still pending.

Mali was suspended from the African Union on 19 August 2020 following a military coup. On 9 October, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union lifted the suspension imposed on Mali, citing progress made to return to democracy. The country was again suspended on 1 June 2021, following its second military coup within nine months.

Guinea's membership was also suspended by the African Union on 10 September 2021, after a military coup deposed the country's President Alpha Condé.

Sudan's membership was suspended by the African Union on 27 October 2021, after a military coup deposed the civilian government led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Burkina Faso's membership was suspended by the African Union in the aftermath of a military coup on 31 January 2022.

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Observers

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Politics

The African Union has a number of official bodies:
; Pan-African Parliament (PAP): To become the highest legislative body of the African Union. The seat of the PAP is at Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. The Parliament is composed of 265 elected representatives from all 55 AU states, and intended to provide popular and civil-society participation in the processes of democratic governance. Its president is Roger Nkodo Dang, of Cameroon.
; Assembly of the African Union: Composed of heads of state and heads of government of AU states, the Assembly is currently the supreme governing body of the African Union. It is gradually devolving some of its decision-making powers to the Pan-African Parliament. It meets once a year and makes its decisions by consensus or by a two-thirds majority. The current chair of the AU is President Macky Sall, President of Senegal.
; African Union Commission (or Authority) : The secretariat of the African Union, composed of ten commissioners and supporting staff and headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In a similar fashion to its European counterpart, the European Commission, it is responsible for the administration and coordination of the AU's activities and meetings.
; Court of Justice of the African Union: The Constitutive Act provides for a Court of Justice to rule on disputes over interpretation of AU treaties. A protocol to set up this Court of Justice was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2009. It was, however, superseded by a protocol creating an African Court of Justice and Human Rights

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