Your Excellences,
Distinguished Partners,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

Allow me to start by thanking all of you for making time to participate in this virtual meeting of the Humanitarian Matters and Disaster Risk Management. I would like to extend special thanks to OCHA, our co-chair of this Cluster, for the support and partnership in organizing this meeting.

These are indeed extraordinary times of the pandemic, yet Africa continues to experience conflicts, of protracted nature. In the horn of Africa region, conflicts in Somalia, South Sudan, DRC and insecurity in the Darfur region and Central Africa Republic, continue to be of concern. This continues amidst the fight against locust manifestation, drought, famine and floods in the region. The security situation in Libya and the continued displacement of the Saharawi people continues unabated, while the terrorist insurgency continues to ravage in Lake Chad Basin and continues to surge in the Sahel region with devastating effects in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. This has resulted with 7.8 million refugees and 19.2 million IDPs in Africa, meaning that approximately 27million people are forced to flee their homes owing to conflicts, human rights violations, and natural disasters and this makes our continent host a third of the world’s displaced population.

Countries cannot fight the threat of COVID-19 when they are still experiencing violence, conflicts and terrorist insurgencies. Despite the repeated calls for a global ceasefire in the war-torn regions during the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing conflicts and terrorist insurgencies in the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin and Cabo Delgado Province in Mozambique continue to displace large numbers of communities. Political tensions have also been experienced in Mali, Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Sudan among others. Such situations are a major challenge to the fulfilment of the AU 2020 theme of the year on Silencing the Guns – Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa’s Development. It is for this reason that the Peace and Security Council (PSC) reaffirmed the clarion call by the Chairperson of the Commission, H.E. Moussa Faki Mahammat and the UN Secretary-General, H.E. Antonio Guterres for all belligerents to fully embrace and uphold the Global Ceasefire in order to facilitate efforts being deployed against the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is now clear that the pandemic has created a burden to our societies and is affecting Africa’s capacity to support peace and security efforts going on, even as more needs to be done to definitively silence the guns and end abuses, including sexual and gender-based violence. Therefore COVID-19 pandemic is not just a health crisis, but has presented challenges with social, economic and political dimensions.
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our societies across Africa has been significant. COVID-19 has had major implications, particularly to the most vulnerable members of the community, including the refugees, returnees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), vulnerable migrants, and vulnerable stateless persons among other. Border closers not only posed significant challenge to asylum but also diminished access to basic services and livelihoods for millions of vulnerable communities. Sweeping school closures meant that millions are left out of school for extended period of time.

The multi-dimensional challenges of the pandemic have been further compounded by flooding, locust infestation and other natural and man-made disasters which has devastated several countries including Mauritius,

During its meeting on 28 April 2020, the Peace and Security Council commended Member States for their swift response measures to COVID-19 and urged them to adopt a human right based and an inclusive whole-of-society approach. This will ensure that the fundamental rights of citizens including right to life and right to human dignity are preserved, protected and promoted, especially for the most vulnerable, including displaced persons, returnees, host communities, migrants, persons in detention and civilians in conflict situations. The AU PSC has fully been sized of the matter. My department continues to actively participate in a series of sessions organized by the PSC highlighting priority humanitarian concerns. We have also supported the process of a strategic framework that support the inclusion of the most vulnerable groups in national and continental COVID-19 responses.

Dear friends and partners,

I would like to express our appreciation to the thousands of health workers and other humanitarian workers who put their lives at risk daily in the frontlines to stay and deliver lifesaving services for those who need it.

Many humanitarian workers of the AU, RECs and its partners have been directly affected by the virus. Some of your staff and senior managers many of whom are close friends and partners have battled and continue to battle the virus. We stand in solidarity with all of them and send them our thoughts and prayers.

We are heartened to observe that the world is giving due recognition to the hard work and resilience shown by all our partners. Allow me in this context to express our pride and congratulations to the United Nations World Food Program for being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2020. WFP, together with its multiple partners, has been instrumental in operationalizing regional humanitarian hubs and battling hunger particularly in the current environment of the pandemic.

Preventing humanitarian crises and finding solutions for displacement are main priorities of the AU. The involvement of the AU and its Member States in these strategic areas are being reinvigorated through ongoing institutional reform. These institutional reform efforts entail effective mobilization of broader and all-inclusive support to the AU Peace Fund and establishment of key institutions such as the African Humanitarian Agency.

Our excellent partnership and joint work in implementing activities of AU theme 2019 has helped us achieve significant positive outcomes. Five countries namely Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Somalia and South Sudan have ratified the African Union Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (the Kampala Convention). We brought Member States, partners, development actors and representatives of displaced population to have transparent and constructive consultation on a range of topics which led to important and positive outcomes.
In the coming weeks, we will reach out to you for partnership in co-organizing the 2020 Humanitarian Symposium which will have a number of virtual events focusing on COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 theme of the year and follow up actions on our 2020 theme of the year. I count on your support and active participation.

As you know, our colleague and former head of the Humanitarian Affairs, Refugees Internally Displaced Persons Division (HARDP), Mr Olabisi Dare retired after years of exemplary leadership and service. It is my pleasure to inform you that the Commission has appointed Ms Rita Amukhobu as Acting Head of the Division. As many of you already know Ms Amukhobu is a widely respected senior staff at the DPA with impressive professional background and years of dedicated service. She will later share with you some of our key priority actions in the coming few months. I trust that you will continue to extend your cooperation and support to her and her team and the department at large.

I thank you for your attention.