Addis Getachew and Seleshi Tessema
09 February 2020•Update: 09 February 2020
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
The African leaders are meeting in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa on Sunday for the annual meeting of the African Union (AU) leaders.
The 33rd summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government is being held under the theme of Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa’s Development.
Silencing the Guns is a commitment that the leaders vowed seven years ago to end all wars and conflicts by 2020, but failed.
The two-day leaders’ summit is being attended by more than 35 heads of state and government, as well as representatives of regional and international organizations.
“Heightened tensions from terrorism challenges Africa,” Moussa Faki Mahamat, the AU Commission chairman, said in his opening speech, indicating that conflicts and the scourge of terrorism are rife in the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa, with war raging in Libya.
“Civilians die every day and children are seeing their schools closing,” he said, pointing out the lack of solidarity among Africans to silence the guns by eliminating conflicts and their root causes.
Other headline issues to be deliberated upon during the summit include sustainable funding of Africa’s development agenda, specifically addressing the scale of assessment and contributions to the AU’s budget; progress made in the implementation of the 2063 agenda; operationalization of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA); African candidatures in the international system, the International Criminal Court, and Africa’s digital transformation strategy.
