Online Reporter
Today Zimbabwe and the rest of our continent celebrate Africa Day and the day is far more important than the simple inauguration of the original Organisation of African Unity by 35 countries on May 25, 1963.
It is important as a moment for the 1,5 billion Africans to rededicate themselves to their continent and to push forward on the many fronts where we have already made a lot of progress — economically, socially, politically and culturally.
In today’s world, the need for African countries to stand together in ever closer union is obvious. The multi-national world set up after the Second World War is tending to fragment, and unless Africans stand together, they will probably be chewed up in the more messy rivalries and be ignored in some of the most crucial international debates.
Practical considerations must drive this push for greater continental progress. Most African countries are relatively small by global standards, although there are a few exceptions.
The continent contains a significant majority of the world’s landlocked states, so we need to be together to give everyone decent access to global markets.
The African Union has made a great deal of progress since it was inaugurated in 2002 to take over and radically upgrade the old OAU, although there is obviously continuity.
The upgrade was less revolutionary than recognition of the changes already made and the need to change the hopes and desires of the OAU into the practical treaties and decisions to establish greater unity.
For its first 30 years, the OAU’s central push was to finish liberating the continent. While some colonial powers had been willing to give up direct control, although hoping to maintain influence, there were still holdouts and the colonial settler regimes in Southern Africa.
The OAU was able to keep the liberation of the continent high on the global agenda, which helped speed progress and helped co-ordinate assistance to liberation movements.
At the same time, the OAU supported the creation of regional groupings of immediate neighbours, making it clear that dual membership of regional and continental blocs and common markets was not just acceptable, but a good way of building up transnational institutions and thus the building blocks of a more unified Africa.
One of the most critical decisions made early on was to maintain the old inherited boundaries, which could only be altered by agreement of the two countries involved, and to take any border disputes to the International Court of Justice.
That at least saved Africa from the dreadful border wars that caused so much suffering in every other continent where there were multiple states.
There were still civil wars and military coups, but here the African Union this century has been making a stand and, backing the efforts of the regional blocs, has been laying down standards.
Liberation for Africa was not just the retirement of the old colonial powers and the eradication of settler dominance, but the right of all Africans to choose their governments and, via their elected parliaments, to approve all laws. In other words, freedom also meant democracy.
This has now seen the suspension of six of the 55 AU members this decade after military takeovers, something many had hoped had been overcome.
But there is that belt of five states across the Sahel, plus Madagascar, that need to take a deep breath and return to elected civilian governments before their membership becomes active. The AU has moved from hand-wringing and talk to practical action in setting African standards.
The stronger AU has also been a major driver towards the African Continental Free Trade Area, being built on the regional free-trade blocs that already existed. This now needs to be pushed more urgently. Africa contains almost all the resources needed for its own rapid industrialisation.
In fact, it is a major commodity exporter and so needs to transform into a major exporter of the manufactured products made from those resources.
And that needs the unified continental market that AfCFTA must form.
It is still weird that African countries export so many raw materials that other African countries need to import from outside the continent. Petroleum products are one outstanding example, but there are many others.
AfCFTA will also help boost investment into the continent, as investors seek production bases within the free-trade area.
And that will be an extra driver, beyond national efforts, for African industrialisation and technical development.
The AU has done much to make Africa a more peaceful continent, although the process is not complete, and the AU has done much to set continental standards and create functioning and practical institutions.
Even research in agriculture needs continental efforts. African crops tend to be specialised for Africa, and the pests tend to be local too, and if Africans do not do the research into these crops and pests, it is unlikely anyone else will do it.
All this is part of that process of making Africa fully liberated, able as a continent to stand on its own feet and stand proud in its own progress, driven largely by its own people.
That has been the vision as colonialism receded, but we still need to build up practical measures and take action. We have the ability and we have the means.
