African Union Was Funded 75% By the European Union in 2023

Tuesday, 6 August 2024

By: TB Obwoge

Most people especially Africans think that they fund the African Union, much like the various African economic groups such as ECOWAS which is CEDEAO in French and the EAC Bloc. The EAC Bloc is a group of East African countries and ECOWAS is the group of West African countries.

From doing some reading and research you can't help but notice that the European Union is funding the African Union as a matter of fact in 2023, 75% of the funding for the African Union came from the EU.

The AU still relies heavily on the EU, which provides more than half of its annual budget. This year, the AU’s partners, the EU and European member states, are providing $370 million of the total AU budget of $605 million. Of this, $208,4 million was for the AU’s programmes and $161,6 million for peace support operations. The EU’s funding to the AU is part of a wider partnership between the EU and Africa to promote peace, security and economic development on the continent.

Yet, for over a year, officials have tried to arrange a meeting of ministers from the EU and the AU to resume discussions since their last summit in February 2022. A meeting scheduled for November 2024 was cancelled a week before it was to occur, reportedly because some ministers were unavailable. Officials now hope that it will occur shortly after the European summer.

Source Institute For Security Studies

Anyone knows when someone is funding (supporting you), they're going to want to have a say in what you can and cannot do. This is no different, the European Union may possibly be why they African Union seems to be so ineffective when it comes to handling the many issues on the African continent.

Here in a post about the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti area), which is dealing with terrorism that has spilled over into Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia.

There are American troops in the Horn of Africa, combined troops from Europe and USA. Why would countries from the most powerful militaries in the world be unable to stomp out terrorists? Think about it, think long and hard it makes no sense.

With the largest military budget in the world, American troops and European troops can't fish out terrorist groups?

The AU-EU relationship is formalised through summits and regular official interactions. Their respective security arms exchange information and undertake joint field missions. Collaboration between the AU and UN is governed by the 2017 peace and security framework and the 2018 Joint Framework for the Implementation of the AU’s Agenda 2063. Annual AU-UN conferences are also held.

Why can't African military forces take care of the issues on the African continent? Egypt being one of the top 20 most powerful military forces in the world, surely is situated in a position to lead the other 55 militaries in Africa. But why won't it?

Most African countries are still heavily under the influence of Western governments. Always pandering for funding, loans and investments from these outside countries. If only African leaders would actually focus on ending corruption and overspending on their own yards (countries).

There is even talk that the African Union may be removing the membership of the 3 countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which seems like such a European Union move, not an African move.

Is the reason why the African Union seems to be ignoring the rampant issues on the African Continent? Is this funding hendering their concern? I've written a letter, a physical letter to the African Union to ask this and several of my own questions.

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