African bloc outlines 10-year plan

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - Africa's second 10-year plan will focus on expansion of infrastructure development across the continent, increase agriculture outputs and clean energy transition, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission said Friday.

“It will revolve around three main objectives: to ensure greater physical connectivity of the continent through the construction of roads and other communication infrastructures, to establish the conditions for sufficient domestic agricultural production to reduce imports of foodstuffs and build the technical capacities to make the energy transition a success,” Mahamat said in a statement.

“Mobilizing all intellectual, financial and material resources, to attain this triple objective, is a collective challenge that calls upon everyone to be creative, inventive and above all bold,” he added.

His remarks were made in connection with the commemoration of Sept. 9, 1999, when African heads of state and government met in Libya and decided to transform the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU).

In July 2002, in South Africa, that decision came to life when African leaders, in an extraordinary summit, launched the AU.

The OAU was established in 1963 in Ethiopia by Africa’s pan-African leaders to mainly achieve political independence on the continent.

Analysts agree that Africa’s dependence on food imports has never been exposed more nakedly than during the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

Senegalese President Macky Sall in his capacity as the 2022 Chair of the AU, accompanied by Mahamat, went to Russia and Ukraine to get their leaders to give safe passage to African-bound cargo ships.

Ankara, along with the UN, Moscow and Kyiv, agreed July 22 to facilitate the release of food and fertilizers shipments stuck in Ukraine because of the war, leading to a rise in prices.

“Africa’s food import bill has more than tripled, reaching about $35 billion a year. Much of this imported food could be produced locally, creating much needed jobs and incomes for nations’ youth and smallholder farmers,” according to the World Bank.