African Union summit held at Addis Ababa

The 35th African Union summit was held at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Security and pandemic were given top priority at the summit.

Key Points on the summit

• The countries discussed about the unavailability of COVID vaccines to many African countries
• Lately African Union has been facing institutional failures because of insurgencies and coup. This fact was widely agreed by many of the members.
• All the six recent military coups were discussed.
• The summit announced that only 11% of the Africans are fully vaccinated.
• Palestine wanted the African Union to withdraw the observer status of Israel.

What did Ethiopia say during the summit?

The Ethiopian Prime Minister Abhiy Ahmed addressed the summit. He announced to end the conflict with Tigrayan rebels.

What is the Tigray crisis?

The Tigray People Liberation Front was a political party. It was a part of the coalition government that ended the military dictatorship in 1991. The TPLF leader became the president of Ethiopia in 1991. Later in 1995, he became the first PM of Ethiopia. The coalition government is called EPRDF Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front. In 2018, the EPRDF chose Abhiy as the PM. Abhiy was a military intelligence officer. Since then the TPLF has been fighting against the government. The TPLF is threatening to fight a regional war in the Horn of Africa. The Horn of Africa houses Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Eritrea. The internal political crisis of Ethiopia is affecting other African countries as well.

Theme of the summit

• Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on African continent
• Strengthening agro – food systems, health and social protection systems to accelerate human, economic and social capital development