African leaders gathered on Saturday in Addis Ababa for the annual African Union summit, aiming to revive a faltering trade deal while confronting the continent’s most urgent challenges, including armed conflict and a deepening food crisis. The two‑day meeting comes as Africa reels from a record drought in the Horn of Africa and deadly violence in the Sahel and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Delegates will seek to address these crises and accelerate the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), launched in 2020.
The AfCFTA is touted as the world’s largest free‑trade pact by population, encompassing 54 of the 55 African nations; Eritrea remains the sole holdout. Currently, African countries trade only about 15 percent of their goods and services with each other. The agreement aims to raise intra‑African trade to 60 percent by 2034 by eliminating almost all tariffs. However, implementation has lagged, hampered by disputes over tariff reductions and border closures triggered by the Covid‑19 pandemic.
Most summit sessions will be held behind closed doors at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, but observers will watch closely to see whether the bloc can broker ceasefires in the Sahel and eastern DRC, where the M23 militia has seized large swaths of territory and sparked a diplomatic row between Kinshasa and Rwanda, which is accused of backing the rebels. At a mini‑summit on Friday, leaders of the seven‑nation East African Community called for all armed groups to withdraw from occupied areas in eastern DRC by the end of next month. “We cannot walk away from the people of DRC; history will be very harsh on us. We must do what we have to do,” Kenya’s President William Ruto told the meeting.
Created in 2002 after the disbanding of the Organisation of African Unity, the AU now includes all 55 African states, representing a population of 1.3 billion. While the bloc has been praised for taking a stand against coups, it has long been criticised as ineffectual. UN Secretary‑General António Guterres, who is visiting Ethiopia, will address the assembly, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame is slated to present a report on reforming AU institutions. Kagame has urged the AU for years to implement major reforms, including achieving financial independence, as the organization remains heavily dependent on foreign donors.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will also deliver a statement on Saturday, according to the draft agenda. Last year, controversy erupted over Israel’s accreditation as an observer at the AU, with the Palestinians demanding its withdrawal. The dispute arose after Moussa Faki Mahamat, head of the African Union Commission, accepted Israel’s accreditation, triggering a rare conflict within a body that values consensus.
Comoros President Azali Assoumani, who will assume the one‑year rotating AU chairmanship from Senegal’s Macky Sall, leads a small Indian Ocean archipelago of about 900,000 people. The International Crisis Group notes that Assoumani will “require the support of other senior African leaders to discharge the role, given his country’s limited diplomatic heft.” Before handing over the chair, Sall will present a report on the food crises gripping a continent hit by the worst drought in four decades and the knock‑on effects of the war in Ukraine, which have driven up the cost of basic goods.
Junta‑ruled Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, currently suspended from the AU, cannot participate in the summit, but diplomats from the three Sahel nations are in Addis Ababa to lobby for readmission.
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