The African Union’s credibility will be in the spotlight at its annual leaders’ summit, which starts in Addis Ababa on Saturday (17 February) — as it faces up to another political crisis in a key member state.
With ambitions to become more like the European Union, the 55-member AU is gradually becoming more influential in setting the regulatory standards that will govern trade across the continent, particularly as the African Continent Free Trade Area becomes reality.
Last month, for example, the European Medicines Agency revealed that it will be providing funding and logistical support for the creation of an African health agency.
Where the AU is often lacking is in political clout. When the EU opened talks in 2018 on a successor to the Cotonou Agreement, which governs trade and political relations with the 88-country African, Caribbean and Pacific community (ACP), African leaders were divided on whether to opt out of the process and broker their own continent-to-continent deal with Brussels via the AU.
AU insiders said that opposition to its role came from South Africa and Nigeria, the continent’s two largest economies, who feared that the AU could become too powerful.
Analysts say that the AU and the 15 member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have been badly weakened by their weak and divided response to the recent military coups in the region, most recently in Niger last year.
Having threatened military action to oust the leaders of the coup in Niger and restore Mohamed Bazoum as president, it quickly became clear that Ecowas’s leaders did not have the unity or the resolve to back up their words with actions beyond economic sanctions.
That blindsided other international actors, such as the EU and United States, who had promised to follow ECOWAS’ lead and also refused to have formal relations with the new juntas.
At a hearing in the European Parliament earlier this month, Ulf Laessing, the director of the regional Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Mali, told MEPs that ECOWAS and the AU had lost credibility in the eyes of millions of Africans.
That latest governance challenge has emerged in Senegal, traditionally one of West Africa’s most stable democracies.
Senegal slipping
The decision by Senegal’s outgoing president Macky Sall, and backed by Sall’s Benno Bokk Yaakaar coalition in parliament, to postpone presidential elections that were due on 25 February, and set a new election date of 15 December, potentially extending Sall’s mandate by eight months, poses a major test to the AU as a political actor.
Last week ECOWAS foreign ministers criticised the proposed delay, while Nigerian president Bola Tinubu cancelled a planned visit to Senegal.
In a joint statement, ministers said that Sall and his party should “take steps urgently to restore the electoral calendar in accordance with the provisions of Senegal’s Constitution.”
The lack of political buy-in from its member states is also reflected in the AU’s funding structure.
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The organisation still relies on international funding, much of which comes from the European Union, for around two-thirds of its $655m [€608bn] annual budget, exposing it to African criticism for its perceived lack of independence. Last year 30 member states defaulted on at least part of their annual contributions to the AU budget, leaving a financial shortfall of $201m, a 31 percent deficit
In 2017, African leaders agreed to impose a 0.2 percent levy on imported goods, using the money to help finance the AU’s operational projects, programmes and peace and security operations budget.
However, only 17 of the 55 AU member states have put the levy into law, and many are not remitting the funds to Addis Ababa.
The continental bloc saw a major boost to its international recognition last year.
In September 2023, the G20 made the AU a permanent member, giving it a seat at the table on proposed reforms to international financial institutions. In December, the UN Security Council agreed that assessed contributions could be used to help pay for AU-led peace operations. However, the new UN financing mechanism will help will only cover up to 75 percent of the cost, leaving the continent to fill the gap with its own funds or seek external support.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, the former Chadian prime minister who has led the AU Commission, the bloc’s secretariat, which is modelled on the European Commission, since 2021, is due to stand down in 2025.
The jockeying to succeed him at next year’s summit will start in Addis but Faki’s successor will need more political support if the AU’s future role is to match its ambitions.
