News Analysis: Africa to Sail New Flagship Amidst Tough Tides

With the winding down of the 38- year-old Organization of African Unity (OAU) and its replacement by the African Union (AU) with a planned parliament, court of justice and central bank this week, Africans are boarding a new flagship with fresh hopes amidst tough tides.

At the just concluded 37th OAU summit held in Lusaka, Zambia, Amara Essy, former Ivorian foreign minister and seasoned diplomat, has been chosen to turn a outdated pan-African body into a modern entity during a 12-month transition period.

Africans, marginalized in a globalizing world and bypassed by emerging trade arrangements, hope the new body will be able to help them address the pressing concerns facing them, i.e., in forging economic, political and legal ties on a continent dogged by wars and poverty, and saddled with a 350 billion U.S. dollar debt.

But the road is rocky. According to a delegate attending the summit who asked to be anonymous, the AU is no doubt a grand developing plan, but to make it operational is time-consuming.

Newly-elected OAU secretary general Amara Essy also admitted in an interview after his appointment that it will take time to set up all the institutions of the AU. This is the biggest challenge in the transitional period, he said.

"Lack of funds is a main question of the African Union," Essy said, noting that although the constitutive act of the AU stipulates that the transitional period lasts for one year, he is not sure he can fulfill all the preparations within the period.

The OAU has been plagued by the constraints of money for as long as its 38-year history. According to a report produced by outgoing OAU chief Salim Ahmed Salim, 90 percent of the body's member states failed to pay their dues on time. Before the just ended summit, a dozen countries have been threatened to be barred from the meeting for not paying their dues before the deadline.

The AU will require far more resources than its predecessor did and until those resources are found it will be difficult to implement its grand plans, said Jakkie Cilliers, director of the South African-based Institute for Security, while attending a high- level OAU meeting that directly preceded the summit.

This is only one aspect of the picture. Some political observers say even after all the organs of the AU are institutionalized after the transitional period, the continent still face a range of challenges, stressing the establishment of the AU does not necessarily mean solving of all the problems of the continent.

The AU must, fore and most, meet the increasing demands for peace and security in the continent, as member states look to it to do a better job at handling civil and ethnic strife than its predecessor, whose record at conflict prevention is considered disappointing.

Despite some positive developments, Africa is still confronted with persistent internal conflicts and cross-border wars which threaten to derail its hope for a peaceful environment, such as those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, the Sudan and Sierra Leone.

"The African skies remain overcast by a dark cloud of violent conflicts, and ethnic religions and other unresolved tensions as well as the spectre of unconstitutional usurpation of political power that looms menacingly around us," lamented Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, who is also the incoming chairman of the rotating OAU presidency.

Addressing the summit, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said African leaders must redouble efforts to resolve the crises of the continent if the grand AU plan is to bear fruit. "The first business is to end conflicts and crises and work together to resolve their differences through political means and dialogue," he stressed.

On his part, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi argued that the AU, whose ultimate design is to achieve a United States of Africa, needs to be anchored in absolute peace and economic advancement. He warned that there is danger the Union would only be symbolic if peace and economic prosperity are not realized in the African countries.

Bridging the economic divide among member countries could also become problematic, as the continent's numerous trading blocs--the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the Southern African Development Community, the Community of East Africa and the Economic Community of West African States--have been at odds over forging free trade agreements. Actually, it is observed that one of the most daunting challenges for the new organization is to coordinate the operations of these economic groupings.

And there is the heavy debt burden, which has greatly hindered African countries' development drive. African countries have a combined external debt of 350 billion dollars, equivalent to 80 percent of their gross domestic product. Partly for this, about half of its 730 million population live below poverty line, with the per capita income averaged less than one dollar a day.

Another daunting challenge the continent faces is the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which is predicted to drain the work force by a large margin in 2020.

According to a UNAIDS report in 2000, sub-Saharan Africa have 25.3 million people infected with HIV, 70 percent of the 36.1 million cases globally. In a dozen countries, the infection rate has surpassed 25 percent.

"The disease is all around us- within our communities, our families, our homes-and it will defeat our best efforts at peace and development unless we defeat it first," Annan said.

As a result, despite that the AU holds a great promise for Africa as a whole, it still has a long way to go if it is to really bring peace, solidarity and development to the poorest continent in the world. "This promise will not be realized easily, " Annan told African leaders.






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