Two years after it replaced the much-maligned and ineffective Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the African Union seems much more determined to tackle the continent’s crises, but has one major problem: money.
During the AU’s third ordinary summit, to be held from Tuesday to Thursday at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, AU commission chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare will unveil a strategic plan for the coming three years.
Its budget stands at $1,7-billion dollars. Of this, $600-million is destined for a ”peace fund” to bankroll the deployment of troops or military observers to various hot points, such as Darfur in western Sudan, or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Another $600-million is destined for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, an initiative aimed at attracting foreign investment and promoting good governance across the continent.
But $570-million a year is a considerable amount of money for Africa, the world’s poorest continent.
With a much more modest budget of $40-million a year, the defunct OAU had problems keeping afloat financially.
”Peace is expensive. Peace mechanisms require considerable resources that are often beyond the reach of the AU’s available means,” the commission said in a document about the strategic plan.
Money-spinning proposals include calling on member stands to hand 0,5% of their budgets, or 10% of their defence budgets, over to the AU.
On Friday, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the continent’s richest country south of the Sahara, said African leaders need to agree on how to boost the AU’s coffers.
A conference where the international community will be asked to cough up some cash is scheduled for October.
In April the European Union, on which the AU is closely modelled, came across with $250-million for AU peacekeeping operations.
In June, the EU also gave the AU $12-million for its military observer mission in Darfur, where a rebel uprising that began in February 2003 and a heavyhanded response by government forces and allied militia have brought about what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The United States also promised to support the AU’s future peacekeeping operations.
It was primarily a lack of funds that forced the AU to hand over its first major peace operation, in war-ravaged Burundi, to the UN in June.
The AU mission in Burundi had about 2 700 troops from South Africa, the chief mediator in Burundi’s peace process; Ethiopia, where the AU has its headquarters; and Mozambique, whose president, Joaqim Chissano, also heads the AU.
The UN operation, by contrast, will be expanded to include 5 650 troops from a larger number of countries. — Sapa-AFP