A Glimse of African Union Commission Achievements in 2020.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, the current African Union Commission (AUC) will now chair the AUC for a two-renewal four-year term 2017-2020, 2021-2024. He has before chaired the United Nations Security Council in December 2015, the AU Peace and Security Council in September 2013, and steered the Nairobi Extraordinary Summit on the fight against terrorism. Moussa's contribution to AU during his first term motivated 51 African States to re-elect him to chair AUC. Despite many challenges, he has accomplished different tasks during his last year of leadership including:

The Africa Task Force for Novel Coronavirus has helped governments to improve the screening for the virus and negotiate a vaccine for the member States. Furthermore, the AU Department of Social Affairs established the African Strategy against Covid19 and Covid solidarity fund to acquire the 270 million vaccines for 36% of the African States against the planned 60%. 

On peace and security, the AU peace fund established in 1993 was relaunched in 2018 and reached a contribution of USD200 million in 2020. AU suspended Mali’s membership for three months following the military ouster of the former president under Article (30) for violating Article 4 (o) and (p). ECOWAS sent a delegation to mediate between the president and the civilian and demanded a civilian-led transition after instituting sanctions which were later relieved. Currently, Mali is faced with terrorist attacks and a humanitarian crisis with a government that does not meet the 2/3rd gender rule of the 1992 Malian constitution. 

After the Sudan military takeover in 2019, the AU intervened on accounts of unconstitutional change of government according to Article 4 of the AU Constitutive Act. The military was to hand over power in 25 days to a civilian-led government on a consensual transition. Although AU was supposed to suspend Sudan from the AU activities, it gave the country a three-month extension to allow further negotiations and thus was criticized for securing political transition while less engaged in safeguarding the path to civilian-leg government. 

AU bureau group of five leaders was given the legitimacy to intervene in peace and security and mediated a tense dispute over the GERD among Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopian governments since 2011. 

Ethiopia continues with the project because it will improve lives in the region. The dispute is based on the 1959 agreement that allocated all the Nile River’s waters to Egypt and Sudan leaving 10 cubic meters for seepage and evaporation and none to Ethiopia. Although AU has resolved many issues associated with the dispute, and the three countries agreed that a drought would be inevitable when the flow of the water to the dam falls below 35-4o b.c.m per year according to Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia would have to release some of the waters in the dam to deal with such drought but Ethiopia prefers the flexibility to deal with the drought on its own.

Although the AMISOM peacekeeping mission in Somalia is expected to elapse in 2021, Somalia-Kenya border disputes continue to intensify even after IGAD directed Djibouti to lead a fact-finding mission into Somalia allegations which were proven baseless in January 2021 report. After the conflict in Gedo between the Somalia National and Jubaland forces which led to the loss of lives, Kenya wrote to AU on the likelihood of the issue escalating the already worse humanitarian crisis and complication on regional security. Mousa responded by calling for a de-escalation of tension along the shared borders.

On trade, the AUC chair saw the implementation of the AfCFTA in January 2021, later than the planned July 1st, 2019 launch. The AfCFTA is now in the implementation stage and Ethiopia has already traded under the agreement. Countries with multiple memberships, especially Southern and Central African States have not yet submitted their instrument of ratification to AU. These States have not yet tabled the agreement in parliament.

 

Some of the failures of the AUC for the four years include the challenges faced on flagship on silencing the guns in 2020 which has been extended to 2030. Moreover, democracy and constitutionalism as elections are characterized by violence and loss of lives as well as constitutional reforms to allow the regime to control the government beyond the 2-five year-term adopted by many African constitutions. Member States disregarded the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance. The effects of such have been seen in the attempts to silence the guns in 2020. 

African Union continues to get criticism over the ignorance of State crimes against civilians even when the African Charter on People and Human Rights remains operational. The AUPSC is yet to feature in its agenda Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Islamist attacks and the Cameron Anglophone crisis. The crisis has claimed lives, disrupted social welfare, a humanitarian crisis, and intensified the segregation of the Anglophone over the Francophones since 2016 October.

AU member states could relax the principle of national sovereignty and subsidiarity of Article 4(h) and (g) of the AU constitutive Act. Moreover, the member States could strengthen Article 4(j) and Article 32 to give the inter-governmental body power to intervene in cases of a humanitarian crisis as the case with Ethiopia.