African Union - The African Mirror

May

26

2026

Done waiting: Africa’s narrative rebellion arrives

NEWS, #NotWaiting

ON Africa Day 2026, a campaign launched from five cities simultaneously with a message that is at once obvious and long overdue: Africa is not waiting. Not for permission. Not for validation. Not for the world’s cameras to swing away from the crisis and catch the construction. #NotWaiting — the pan-African movement convened by Opportunity Africa, Africa No Filter, and Brand Africa, with the African Union as a founding partner — went live at midnight with a call to Africans on the continent and in the diaspora to flood the internet with stories, people, businesses, and ideas that the dominant…

May

25

2026

By The African Mirror

AFRICA DAY 2026: Africa celebrates, contends and claims its future

NEWS

SIXTY-THREE years after thirty-two newly independent nations gathered in this Ethiopian capital to sign the founding charter of the Organisation of African Unity, the African Union is marking Africa Day 2026 with three days of ceremony, sport, culture and hard continental conversation - and with a theme that cuts to the bone of what development actually means for ordinary people. This year, the AU has framed its anniversary around water. The theme adopted at the 39th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in February — "Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve…

May

09

2026

By The African Mirror

Pan-African solidarity on trial: How a viral video threatens Ghana-SA relations

NEWS

THE diplomatic relationship between South Africa and Ghana - two of the continent's most consequential democracies - has arrived at a precipice that few in either Accra or Pretoria had anticipated just two weeks earlier. What began as a viral social media video of a Ghanaian man being humiliated and ordered to leave South Africa has, with stunning velocity, become a full-blown continental diplomatic crisis, now scheduled for adjudication before African heads of state. Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa formally petitioned the Chairperson of the African Union Commission on 6 May 2026, requesting that xenophobic attacks against African…

Apr

09

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

#KWIBUKA32: Rwanda’s youth march into a future forged from the ashes

NEWS

THEY came in their thousands, the young and the living, marching through the hills of Rwanda alongside their president and first lady, their feet tracing a path that their parents and grandparents nearly never survived to walk. On April 7, 2026, Rwanda marked Kwibuka 32 - the 32nd commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi — and the country did not bow in silence. It stood up and roared. The Flame of Remembrance was lit. The testimonies were given. The tears fell. But woven through the grief was something harder and more enduring - a collective vow, spoken by…

Mar

30

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

A diktat, a disowned candidate, and a continent’s embarrassment

NEWS

BY the close of business on Friday, 27 March 2026, the African Union had delivered one of its most unambiguous institutional verdicts in recent memory. Twenty of its 55 member states formally broke the silence to block a draft decision that would have expressed the continent's "firm support" for Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye - not for Macky Sall himself, but for Ndayishimiye's audacious, unilateral act of nominating the former Senegalese president for the post of UN Secretary-General. The message from the continent was blunt: procedure matters, and no single chair rules Africa by decree. In less than three weeks, what…

Mar

27

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

A force forged in the crucible of African development

AUDA-NEPAD, THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

IN the corridors of the , system, where ambition is plentiful but transformative action rare, Daphine Hazvibvi Muzawazi has become something of an institution in herself. Over a decade of tireless service to the continent's most consequential development architecture, she has evolved from an ambitious young technocrat into one of the AU family's most formidable — and quietly indispensable — strategic minds. Born in Zimbabwe, schooled in agribusiness at Solusi University in Bulawayo and later at the University of Pretoria, where she earned her Master of Science in Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Muzawazi entered the development arena with a…

Feb

24

2026

By ULF ENGEL

African Union: how does it make a difference in everyday life and what would happen if it didn’t exist?

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS

THE African Union held its 39th Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in February 2026. The two-day assembly produced the usual number of decisions and declarations across African peace and security, trade, governance and development. Such gatherings, however, can feel distant from the everyday realities of African citizens. They are a showcase of high-level diplomacy that can feel far removed from public life. Since the Union’s establishment in July 2002, the AU Assembly and the AU Executive Council (the meeting of ministers) have taken more than 2,000 decisions. Usually, decisions are prepared by ambassadors to…

Feb

18

2026

By CHIDI ANSELM ODINKALU

Africa’s trade blocs were designed to unite the continent: four reasons they haven’t delivered

BUSINESS

IN a rapidly fracturing world, regional integration could be a source of resilience for the African continent. The African Union agreed in 2019 to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area, founded on the building blocks laid by eight regional economic communities. These are the Arab Maghreb Union, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (Cen-Sad), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (Eccas), the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). But integration has…

Feb

16

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

African Union brokers watershed peace agreement for South Sudan as regional crises mount

NEWS

AFRICAN leaders on Sunday brokered a landmark agreement aimed at ending years of political deadlock in South Sudan, securing commitments from President Salva Kiir to hold long-delayed elections while releasing political detainees, including detained Vice President Riek Machar. The deal, hammered out during a high-stakes meeting of the Committee of Five (C5) on the sidelines of the 39th African Union Summit, marks the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in South Sudan's troubled transition since the 2018 Revitalised Peace Agreement. Under the six-point framework announced by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who chaired the session, Juba has agreed to implement an immediate…

Feb

28

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

UN Chief’s farewell to Africa: Guterres pledges lifelong solidarity as tenure nears end

NEWS

IN an emotionally charged address to the African Union, outgoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered what he insisted was "not a farewell" but a solemn pledge of eternal solidarity with the continent that has defined his decade-long tenure. Speaking with unusual candour, Guterres declared Africa would remain "priority number one" until his final day in office on December 31, and promised the continent would stay "at the centre of my concerns" for the rest of his life. He concluded in Portuguese: "Africa Sempre" — Africa Always. The Portuguese diplomat's tribute laid bare the depth of his partnership with African nations,…