African Union targets war in drive to end poverty

By William Maclean

ADDIS ABABA, July 3 (Reuters) – For rich foreigners and Africa’s elite, the trip from Nairobi to Addis Ababa involves nothing more strenuous than an hour and 40 minutes relaxing in than a brand new Ethiopian Airlines Boeing.

But 35,000 feet (10,670 metres) below, in the drought-hit badlands of the Kenya-Ethiopia border, mechanised transport of any kind is a luxury for people living at the very limits of survival.

Farmers must struggle not only with endemic malaria and TB but also man-made dangers posed by mini-wars between Ethiopian troops and Oromo rebels and raids by well armed criminal gangs.

Of the two lifestyles, the insecurity and poverty of the second group is overwhelmingly more familiar to Africa’s 830 million people than the First World comfort of the first.

The gap shows the scale of the challenge facing the African Union, a two-year-old continental initiative that plans to put Africa on the fast track out of poverty and into the globalised mainstream of international trade and investment.

A key goal is to convince rich Western nations that African governments are ready to shed despotism, war and corruption in order to attract massive foreign investment.

At its annual summit on July 6-8, leaders will target wars as the key barrier to growth on a continent that has seen 186 coups d’etat and 26 major conflicts in the past half century.

“Without peace all our plans will be but Utopia,” says outgoing AU chairman, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano. “Conflicts are largely the direct cause of the economic and social backwardness of our continent.”

PEACE, GOOD GOVERNANCE

In Addis Ababa, heads of state and government will try to advance plans to set up a peacekeeping force and improve standards of governance. The conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, Africa’s latest cause for gloom, will loom large in discussions.

Sceptics abound, questioning the political will of the 53 member countries to monitor each other’s levels of democracy, as they are meant to do under a so-called peer review mechanism.

“How can you expect much from the AU when many of these member governments are not really answerable to their people,” asks Nhial Bhol, a Sudanese newspaper editor.

With several countries ruled by leaders who seized power in coups or won elections regarded as flawed, some say the union should focus on developing democracy at a national level before creating grand and costly institutions such as its pan-African parliament, launched in March.

But others say the union is making some headway, pointing to a new generation of 30- and 40-something modernisers and democrats now staffing its administrative core, the AU Commission, who are inspired by the scale of the challenge.

“By no means has everything been smooth sailing but the pace has been most encouraging,” says Nigerian analyst Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem.

“There is a new optimism, but more than that, there is a developing critical mass of leaders both in government and civil society who want the AU to work, regardless of what those who never wish Africa well, or have given up on us, may say.”

The AU’s predecessor, the Cold War-era Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU), was perennially starved of funds by member governments and degenerated into a talking shop.

Optimists hope the AU can cajole more funds out of leaders with the argument that Africa will miss out on the riches that globalisation brings if it does not integrate its economies and develop institutions and practices that can attract investors.

With 13 percent of the world’s population the continent accounts for just 1 percent of foreign direct investment, 1 percent of global gross domestic product and 2 percent of world trade — a decline in every indicator since the 1960s.

More than 40 percent of Africa’s population lives on less than $1 a day, 200 million Africans are threatened by serious food shortages and AIDS kills more than 2 million Africans a year.