the long read can the african union be saved from itself

The Long Read: Can The African Union Be Saved From Itself?

Spy lore has it that when the US finally managed to remove the listening devices in the US embassy in Moscow in the early 1990s, the building nearly collapsed. Could the China-funded, China-built African Union AU headquarters in Addis Ababa suffer a similar fate? For the AU's harshest critics, the pressing question isn't who might be spying on the Union, but why anyone would bother.

When allegations of Chinese intelligence gathering surfaced in 2018, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, then chairman of the AU, responded wryly: "I don't think there is anything done here that we would not like people to know." That may be true, but the public perception of the AU's value could lead to a different conclusion. Would Africans really be eager to learn that, aside from the quadrennial elections for the African Union Commission, which are expected next February, as many as half of the continent's heads of state and government often skip the annual AU summit? Few, however, miss the China-Africa Summit or the Tokyo International Conference for African Development TICAD.

Consider, too, the months-long delays in preparing the African Union's first participation as a full member of the G20 Summit in Brazil this November. After eight months of debate, the AU Commission chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, finally appointed Albert Muchanga of Zambia as the Union's 'sherpa" - the representative who prepares participation in an international summit. President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania, who is chair of the African Union, nominated his economic adviser Sid'Ahmed Bouh as the sous-sherpa.

The bureaucratic morass of the AU can seem absurd. Take, for example, the resums and vision statements of some - not all - of the four candidates for chairperson of the African Union Commission: Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, foreign minister of Djibouti Raila Odinga, former prime minister of Kenya Richard Randriamandrato, former foreign minister of Madagascar and Anil Gayan, former foreign minister of Mauritius. Some candidates' references included everything from family members to questionable boasts about their roles in failed negotiations during the 2010-11 Cte d'Ivoire crisis. One proposed a ten-point plan to transform the AU, seemingly unaware that the AU Assembly, not the Commission, sets the strategy. Moreover, the AU already has a comprehensive plan, Agenda 2063, in development.

Every international institution has its flaws. Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton once claimed that if the UN Secretariat building in New York "lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference".