What is the African Union?

Nathan (0:00)

With the admission of Morocco into the African Union as of January 30th, 2017, the AU now consists of all 55 countries on the continent. Based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the main goals of the African Union are to promote the unity and solidarity of African states, ensure their sovereignty and territorial integrity, rid the continent of colonialism and apartheid, and promote international cooperations with the United Nations through a unified voice of common political, social, and economic policies. Although the African continent has suffered through an incredibly turbulent and violent past, the African Union is emerging as a promising platform to tackle the many issues that face the rapidly growing continent. My name is Nathan and welcome to CaspianReport. One of the first major steps toward a unified Africa took place in 1945 at the Fifth Pan-African Conference in Manchester. An influential voice of modern Pan-Africanism was that of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana who at the conference advocated for a United States of Africa. Although the idea did not gather widespread appeal at the time, it did help pave the way for the creation of the African Union's predecessor, the Organization of African Unity, nearly 20 years later in 1963, in which Nkrumah played a vital role. Although aspirations were high at uniting a continent so violently divided by colonialism, the first years of the OAU gave little hope to maintaining peace. In order to make the organization a reality, it needed to appeal to the many African autocrats who were fiercely defensive of their post-colonial independence and who were not keen on the idea of sharing any sort of power with their neighbors. This resulted in the OAU placing emphasis on state sovereignty and adopting a widespread policy of non-intervention of domestic issues, which was ineffective and virtually indifferent towards maintaining peace and stability or defending human rights. A prime example of the ineffectiveness of the OAU was the failure to resolve the conflict over Western Sahara, which has been in dispute since 1975 after separating from Spain. The territory, which was claimed by both Morocco and the Algerian-backed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, or SADR, led to a 15-year-long war over control of the region. The initial years of the war lacked any cohesive attempt from the OAU in forming concrete proposals for a resolution to the conflict. The situation deteriorated further when in 1982, the OAU formally recognized and admitted the SADR as a member, causing Morocco to withdraw from the organization in protest. It was not until 1991 when the United Nations took a greater role in the crisis that a ceasefire was finally established. However, progress has recently been made with the re-admission of Morocco to the African Union, which represents a major step towards resolving the Western Sahara dispute and is a sign that the AU is becoming a more effective platform for dialogue and cooperation. One of the key shifts in the transition from the OAU to the African Union was that the AU aimed to become a force for democracy and abandoned its past tendency to be, as BBC referred to the OAU, a dictator's club. African heads of state are no longer able to ignore democratic principles without fear of intervention from their neighbors. This was no more apparent than in the constitutional crisis of the Gambia in December 2016, when incumbent president Yahya Jame refused to step down after an election loss. The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, which includes the largest African economy Nigeria, condemned the actions of Jame and demanded that he step down. Although their initial demands went ignored by the president, the African Union announced that they offered their full support for the ECOWAS coalition and coordinated the resolution process with the United Nations. When faced with military occupation by neighboring states that were formerly backed by the AU, Jame accepted defeat and stepped down in January 2017

This solidarity in the face of blatant despotism sets a precedent for the African Union and sends a strong message to other would-be despots. By providing a single unified voice for the entire continent, the African Union legitimizes democratic processes and reinforces the ability of Africa's many regional blocs like ECOWAS to coordinate security measures and maintain stability. The main body for driving security efforts is the African Union's Peace and Security Council or PSC. Established in 2004, the PSC is a body consisting of 15 elected members and is partially modeled after the United Nations Security Council. One initiative of the Council is the African Peace and Security Architecture, a comprehensive roadmap to end violence and promote peace on the continent that extends to 2020 This ambitious plan seeks to coordinate security measures with regional blocs, combat terrorism like al-Shabaab in Somalia, and be actively engaged in areas of crisis such as the Congo, South Sudan, and Mali, which are discussed in our 2017 analysis on Africa.