Madame Chairperson of the Executive Council,

Honourable Members of the Executive Council,

Madame Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission

Commissioners,

Distinguished members of the Permanent Representatives Committee,  

Chairmen of the Regional Economic Communities,

Secretaries General and Executive Secretaries of the Regional Economic Communities and Regional Mechanisms,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like, first of all, to thank the Government and people of Zambia for all the efforts made to provide our meeting with an appropriate framework that will ensure the smooth running of the meeting in optimal conditions for success.

Twenty one years after the convening of the 37th Ordinary Session of the OAU, during which our Heads of State and Government drew up the Roadmap for the establishment of the African Union, Lusaka, the charming city, that has since been transformed by a sustained dynamics of development, is once again opening its arms to us to host this 41st Ordinary Session of the Executive Council.

It is being held in an environment strongly marked by a succession of crises starting with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.  These crises have exposed the vulnerability of our health systems and the limits of the resilience of our economies.

They also exacerbated our security challenges related to the virulence and expansion of Terrorism, the rise of violent extremism, the resurgence of Unconstitutional Changes of Government, the disruption of agricultural activities due to drought and flooding, and the deteriorating humanitarian situation on the Continent.

Madame Chairperson,

Excellencies

Ladies And Gentlemen,

Despite the magnitude of these challenges, our leaders remained faithful to the objective set, in 2001, in Lusaka, of changing the political paradigm, a change that is now embodied in the priorities and structuring projects of Agenda 2063.

This Session of the Executive Council will not only assess the level of implementation of our various programmes and decisions during the intersessional period, but will also give priority to the consideration of the recommendations aimed at mitigating the negative impact of the above-mentioned crises on the living conditions of our peoples.

During this first semester, the Specialised Technical Committees in charge of social development met to discuss issues related to the strengthening of gender equality, women's empowerment and positive masculinity, the promotion of decent jobs and programmes aimed at the protection of migrant workers, early childhood and the elderly. 

In the area of health, several activities were carried out. They focused on traditional medicine, the fight against drugs, the acceleration of the reduction of maternal mortality, the modalities for the implementation of Phases 1 and 2 of   Africa CDC, including the revision of its Statutes and the sustainability of its financing and the process of choosing the country to host the Headquarters of the African Medicines Agency (AMA).

The implementation of the 2022 Theme on Food security and Nutrition has generated a flurry of activities in the first six months of the year around the main orientations of increasing investment in nutrition, strengthening of Partnerships and building institutional capacity and an enabling environment conducive to nutrition.

Due to the complexity of the nutrition issue, the activities to be carried out in the future should be based on a holistic approach that takes into account, among other things, nutritional health, agricultural production, school feeding, water, hygiene and sanitation, food supply and access, to name but a few components. To this end, the involvement of the private sector and cooperation with international institutions capable of contributing to the attainment of the objectives set out in the Malabo Declaration should be strongly encouraged.

For each of these areas, your Council should consider the proposed recommendations and, if necessary, validate them.

Madame Chairperson,

Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen,

While the Report on Regional Integration in Africa 2022 prepared by the Commission reveals the progress made in the integration process, it also highlights differences in the performance of the RECs, which are due, among other things, to institutional capacity for implementation.

The value of the Report lies in the identification of constraints and the formulation of recommendations to overcome them. It behoves your Council to enrich these recommendations and determine the modalities for their implementation in the light of the human and financial capacities of each Regional Economic Community.

The effectiveness of this implementation will depend on enhancement of inter-REC and AU-REC coordination.  This coordination looks promising with the entry into force of the revised Protocol between the AU and the RECs/RMs, with the ongoing completion of the division of labour between the AU, the RECs/RMs and Member States and with the operationalisation, in the area of peace and security, of the Interactive Platform called the Inter-Regional Knowledge Exchange on Early Warning and Conflict Prevention (I-RECKE), designed by the Commission.

The coordination will be very useful in our investment efforts for the operationalisation of the Second Priority Infrastructure Plan of Action (PIDA-PAP 2). It will make it possible to optimise resources and accelerate the integration process.  It will also be useful for adopting African Common Positions on issues of Continental interest.

Consequently, I would like to mention our Common position on access to energy and the Energy Transition to be defended at COP 27 which will be hosted by the Arab Republic of Egypt.  I also think that we should make it prevail in the selection of our candidates for the various positions in the international system.

Madame Chairperson,

Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The current context, structured by numerous crises, prompts us to review our toolbox with a view to improving the economic and political governance of the Continent in order to better assert our geopolitical personality on the international scene. It is in this sense that the Commission set up a Joint Task Force, bringing together the Commission, some Organs of the Union and the Member States, requested to propose mechanisms for the design and feasibility of decisions.

In the same vein, the Commission is pursuing institutional reform through the implementation of decisions, particularly those concerning the implementation of the Transition Plan, the main components of which are the new quota system, the Skills audit and the emergency Recruitment plan.

Efforts, therefore, were also made to complete the budgetary and financial reform, which is an essential dimension of the Institutional Reform process. With a view to ensuring the sustainability of the financing of the Union, the F15 meeting, held last May, in Rabat, Morocco, focused on determining the best modalities for implementing the Johannesburg and Kigali decisions adopted by the Assembly in June 2015 and July 2016, respectively.

I would like to echo here the F15 Statement which, at the end of its meeting in Rabat, called on Member States to take concrete and practical measures to reverse the trend observed since 2018 of the decrease in the contributions of the Member States. In the medium term, the effect of such a reversal will be to reduce dependence on partner funding, a principle of budget autonomy to which the AU has always aspired.

Indeed, it is not enough to mobilise additional funding, but it must be deployed efficiently. In this regard, the Report of the Internal Audit reveals improvements in budget execution and in the implementation of decisions and recommendations on audit matters.

Madame Chairperson,

Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Beyond the activities carried out during the intersession, the consideration of the Report of the Ministerial Committee on the Follow-up and Implementation of Agenda 2063 for the First decade, will enable you to take stock of the pace of operationalisation of our flagship projects, their level of progress, which also provides information on the nature of the difficulties that need to be overcome in order to speed up their implementation.

There is no doubt that your guidance and instructions, based on the assessment of this First decade of implementation, will set the first markers that will guide the initiation of the Second decade expected next year, 2023, which, we hope, will be more successful.

It is in the logic of this hope that I am pleased to announce that, two weeks ago, I personally participated in the election of the new Bureau of the PanAfrican Parliament in Midrand, South Africa.

This election, which took place in conditions of transparency and fairness, has restored the image of our institutions, especially the one that carries the voice of the African peoples.

It is on this positive note that I would like to thank you for your kind attention.