African Union - The African Mirror

Feb

28

2025

African Union’s new chair has a long list of tough tasks – what it will take to get them done

HEADLINES, THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FOLLOWING seven rounds of balloting, 60-year-old diplomat Mahmoud Ali Youssouf was elected the sixth chair of the African Union Commission in February 2025. Politics professor Ulf Engel, who is the editor of the Yearbook on the African Union, explains the role and its challenges. What’s the new AU Commission chair’s background? Youssouf is a seasoned diplomat from Djibouti. He is the longest serving minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation of his country (2005-2025), and has also served as chair of the Council of Ministers of the Arab League (2007, 2017) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (2012). What’s the…

Feb

25

2025

By FRANS VILJOEN

DRC vs Rwanda at the African Court: why it could be a decisive moment for human rights and justice on the continent

NEWS

AS the armed conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rages on, calls are being made for non-military solutions. One such process is a court case before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights – a judicial organ of the African Union (AU) established by African states “to ensure the protection of human and peoples’ rights”. The case was brought by the DRC against Rwanda on 21 August 2023. The DRC alleges that Rwanda has violated the African Union’s main human rights treaty, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Kinshasa claims Rwanda has supported M23…

Feb

19

2025

By The African Mirror

African leaders endorse landmark development initiatives at AU Summit

NEWS

IN a watershed moment for African development, the 38th African Union Summit has endorsed four groundbreaking initiatives led by the African Development Bank (AfDB), marking a decisive push toward continental transformation. The endorsements came during AfDB President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina's final address to the Summit, as he prepares to conclude his tenure in September 2025. At the heart of these initiatives is an ambitious drive to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030. This target gained significant momentum at January's Africa Energy Summit in Tanzania, where 48 nations signed the Dar Es Salaam Declaration. The commitment has already secured…

Feb

15

2025

By The African Mirror

The battle for slavery reparations: Africa’s quest for historical justice

NEWS

IN the heart of Addis Ababa, where the legacy of colonialism still echoes through bustling streets and modern high-rises, African leaders are gathering to wage a different kind of liberation struggle. This time, their weapons are not rifles and resistance songs, but economic data, historical records, and moral arguments that cut to the very core of global inequality. The African Union summit represents a watershed moment in the continent's decades-long fight for recognition of historical wrongs. In conference rooms where the air is thick with both hope and scepticism, leaders are crafting a unified vision of justice that spans centuries…

Jan

30

2025

By GERRIT KURTZ

Peace in Sudan: a fresh mediation effort is needed – how it could work

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

INTENSE fighting has ravaged Sudan since 15 April 2023. The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and its erstwhile comrades-in-arms, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Famine, displacement and mass atrocities are wreaking havoc in the country. International mediation efforts have been lacklustre and fruitless. The United Nations Security Council has been preoccupied with other crises and blocked by its own divisions. The African Union has created diplomatic groups, a high-level panel and a presidential committee, none of which has been particularly active. It has been very slow in tackling…

Jan

18

2025

By OLUWATOMILAYO OMOYA; OLUMIDE A ODEYEMI; OMOWALE A ODEYEMI and UDEME SAMUEL JACOB

African countries need more PhD graduates but students are held back by a lack of money and support

EDUCATION

OVER the past 15 years there’s been an increasing demand from within and outside the higher education sector for African countries to produce more PhD graduates. For this to happen, it’s important to know what’s holding people back from pursuing or completing their doctoral degrees. The authors of a new review article did just that, with a focus on South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Nigeria. Five themes emerged from their work: PhD candidates’ sociodemographic profiles, access to funding, the availability of resources and training, experiences with PhD supervisors, and personal coping mechanisms. The Conversation Africa spoke with the paper’s…

Jan

16

2025

By NINA WILÉN and PAUL D. WILLIAMS

Peacekeeping armies: what are they, why do African states build them and what impact do they have?

SPECIAL FEATURES: ANALYSIS, EDITORS CHOICE

SINCE 1948, more than two million uniformed peacekeepers have served in over 70 United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions. They have come from over 120 UN member states. But a few countries have regularly contributed a significant proportion of their troops. They have also made peacekeeping a foreign policy priority, and have adapted their own armed forces to fit UN requirements. These states have developed what we call “peacekeeping armies”. Since the end of the Cold War, the vast majority of these peacekeepers have been deployed in Africa, many of them by African countries. Today, 11 of the 20 countries that…

Jan

11

2025

By ULF ENGEL

African Union to get a new chair: 6 key tasks they must tackle

NEWS

THE African Union (AU) member states will elect a new senior leadership of the AU Commission in February 2025. The commission was originally conceived as the secretariat of the AU. Over the years it has become the driving force behind the pan-African project. The positions of AU Commission chairperson and deputy, as well as most of the six AU commissioners, are contested. The position of chair rotates between the five African regions; this will be east Africa’s turn. There are four candidates, all male. North Africa will put forward candidates for the deputy chairperson. According to the statutes of the…

Jan

02

2025

By CAROLYN HOYLE and PARVAIS JABBAR

Zimbabwe scraps the death penalty – tracking the path to abolition

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ZIMBABWE hasn’t executed anyone who was sentenced to death since 2005. With the passing of the Death Penalty Abolition Act 2024 on 31 December, Zimbabwe has become the 127th country in the world to end the death penalty. This process began with the introduction to parliament of an opposition private member’s bill led by Edwin Mushoriwa, though some amendments were made by the government. Other countries, too, have been moving away from the death penalty. In Africa, only seven of the 55 states in the African Union are “actively retentionist”, meaning that they sentence people to death and have carried…

Dec

23

2024

By ADEM K ABEBE

The African Union has a poor record of protecting democracy. 2024 was no different

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

THE chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, has congratulated the military-led government of Gabon on a successful constitutional referendum. General Brice Oligui Nguema came to power through a coup d’etat in 2023. The new constitution is expected to provide the basis for the conduct of elections that will replace the military government with an elected one in 2025. Faki’s statement was notable for its omission. Under existing African Union frameworks on unconstitutional changes of government, coup leaders are not allowed to run in the elections marking the formal end of governments installed by coups. This is so…