The African Union

The United Nations Office to the African Union (UNOAU) was officially formed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010 to strengthen the partnership between the UN and the African Union. The two actively work to promote peace and cooperation within the region, with the UN supporting the AU through diplomatic efforts. The UNOAU’s core mission is to maintain peace, prevent conflict, and mediate issues between countries. In 2017, the UN and the African Union signed the Joint UN-AU Framework for Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security to encourage further mediation and the rebuilding of societies post conflict. Today, the UNOAU is still working towards building peacebuilding operations and conflict prevention mechanisms on the continent.

Africa is a continent rich in natural resources such as cobalt, oil, gold, and other natural resources, yet many African nations are among the poorest in the world. This sparks an important debate for the African Union: Should African countries have greater control over their resources or should they continue relying on foreign countries and multinational corporations for development? For example, Congo has one of the greatest cobalt reserves in the world with over 50% of the world’s cobalt reserves coming from Congo. However, over 73% of Congo’s population lives below the international poverty line with over 30% of the labour from its cobalt mining being produced by children as young as seven.

Those who support the framework of African sovereignty over their foreign resources argue that African resources should be controlled by African nations who would then determine how and where their resources would go. Supporters also argue that allowing multinational corporations to continue to export, extract, and benefit directly from the resources Africa has while economically and socially disadvantaged them are doing so under another form of colonialism and exploiting the imbalance and chaos left to African nations to clean up and resolve. Massive corporations like Apple directly benefit as a result of this as Apple uses over 30% of Congo’s cobalt and global supply chains dependent on African resources. Greater government control would allow African nations to reclaim greater sovereignty, collect more revenue, create more jobs, develop better infrastructure, and stabilize their economies.

However, foreign investment provides African countries with the capital, expertise, infrastructure, and technology which may not be available to these countries as well as mitigating the risk introduced with greater control which makes completely rejecting foreign investment and companies difficult. This raises the question as to whether the problem lies in foreign investment itself or if African countries have enough bargaining power to ensure that the investments benefit their populations. This debate also overlaps with the issue of odious debt, in which governments amass debt that does not necessarily benefit citizens, creating foreign dependence. However, these loans are given despite the lending country or bank being aware that the money would be misused or would not be able to be repaid. The issue of odious debt is a serious and pervasive issue occurring within many African countries, leaving them susceptible to outside influence and at greater risk for exploitation.

Ultimately, this debate attempts to create a balance between economic and resource  independence and the necessity of global exchange and investment.

1. To what extent should foreign investment in the African subcontinent be moderated?

2. How can the global community support the reclamation of mineral resource management to the nations where the minerals are being harvested? 

3. Who should ultimately benefit from Africa’s resources? African governments, African citizens, or the global economy?

4. Can African countries achieve economic prosperity without foreign investment?

5. Should African countries be required to repay debts acquired under corrupt or authoritarian governments?

6. Is the status of many African nations as periphery due to a lack of resources or a lack of control over its resources?

The current state of child labour in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Berlin Conference

Natural Resources Abundance: Is It One of the Leading Causes of Africa’s Underdevelopment?

Pan-African Unity is the belief that people of African descent share common history, heritage, and culture. Its goal is to connect black and African people worldwide through political, economic, and cultural cooperation to overcome racism and colonialism and has its benefits and drawbacks.

A united continent could lead to the creation of a stronger economic market, increase intercontinental and intracontinental trade, and expand Africa’s influence in global politics. Cooperation could also allow for countries to share resources, infrastructure, technology, and expertise, allowing Africa to abandon its dependence over Western nations. This would enable African countries to negotiate collectively on key issues such as trade, international development, economic prosperity, security and other issues and could help address problems such as conflict, migration, and environmental changes within Africa.

However, to date, Pan-African Unity faces significant and numerous barriers. Pan-African Unity has largely been prevented by the instability of many African nations such as South Africa, Burundi, and Somalia. Continuous strife and conflict both domestically and across the continent contributed to the stunted development of many African countries in addition to the aftereffects of colonialism. The continent contains thousands of ethnic groups, resulting in severe tribalism, regionalism, colourism, ethnic division, and religious divide which often supersedes the greater African identity. Additionally, many African nations experience political instability, economic instability, corruption, civil conflict, and other strife with even more nations being failed states which would make for an equal and unified continent difficult.

Furthermore, the aftereffects of colonialism which many African countries face is complicated by the borders created in Africa as a result of the Berlin Conference of 1884, which ignored several ethnic and cultural communities and left many countries with unequal resources and economic structures. Another question this raises is the inequality across Africa. Greater unity would require numerous resources in Africa to be redistributed which may be unfair for wealthier African nations, especially as many of them such as Egypt, Algeria, and South Africa all still have respective and ongoing issues within their nations. 

Some question whether the identity of Africa as a single nation is in the best interests of African nations or if they should strive closer to a model similar to the European Union? As many African countries are faced with strife, civil unrest, corruption, foreign dependence, economic and political instability, what is really in the best interests of Africa?

1. Should wealthier African nations be expected to financially support other African countries still suffering as a result of colonialism and political and economic instability?

2. How should resource redistribution be divided, if so?

3. Is Africa better off under the identity as a single country or should it attempt to model a structure like the European Union?

4. Would African countries have more bargaining power if they negotiated collectively as opposed to individually with foreign corporations?

The End of Pan-Africanism? How Politics Is Challenging African Unity

The Pan-Africanist Movement and the road to liberation

Pan Africanism is Dead: A Critical Disquisition