The Second Africa-Arab Summit held in Sirte, Libya
On Sunday (10th Oct) the Second Africa-Arab Summit took place in Sirte, Libya, more than three decades after the first such summit was held in March 1977 in Cairo. The Chairperson of that first Africa-Arab Summit, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, also addressed this meeting, as did Colonel Muammar Ghadafi, Current Chairman of the Arab Summit, Mr. Ali Bongo, President of Gabon and Vice Chairman of the African Union, Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission and Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States. More than sixty African and Arab leaders attended.
Given the geographical, historical and cultural ties of the member states of the two regions (nine of the twenty-two members of the League of Arab States also belong to the African Union), the Summit agreed to reactivate the cooperation agreement reached during the first Africa-Arab Summit and to elevate it into a partnership strategy. As adopted by the Summit, this strategy provides long-term guidance to African and Arab countries and their regional institutions for the achievement of common objectives. The strategy defines the principles, objectives and areas of cooperation as well as implementation and follow-up mechanisms. These will involve a joint council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs to meet every 18 months and a Commission of Africa-Arab Partnership to provide an executive arm for the Summit, as well as various sectoral committees. A detailed Six-Year Action Plan (2011-2016) for priority areas was also produced: this covered cooperation in politics, peace and security; economic and financial issues; agriculture and food security, including climate change, and socio-cultural fields.
The strategy envisages upgrading the Africa-Arab political dialogue at all levels to foster a strong and sustainable region-to-region partnership, with the African Union and the League of Arab States providing essential institutional support. This should lead to the realization of durable peace and security in the two regions and more widely. In the economic field, the strategy aims to intensify Africa-Arab cooperation in finance, trade and other developmental fields on the basis of solidarity, interdependence and mutual benefit. It calls for the promotion of physical infrastructure as a prerequisite for the achievement of sustainable development, increased productivity and increased trade flows as well as inter-regional tourism and other people-to-people exchange. The strategy plans to build on the experiences of the two regions in linking bilateral and regional power grids. It will also provide for support and investment in the agricultural agenda of Africa, as set out in the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme, and in similar Arab programmes.
The Summit adopted a Declaration enumerating areas of common interest regionally and internationally. It pronounced its support for the struggle of the Palestinian people and their inalienable right to self-determination. It expressed its concern over the continued acts of violence and terrorism in Somalia targeting civilians regardless of excuse or justification; it reaffirmed its full support for the Somali Federal Transitional Government (TFG), for the unity, sovereignty, territorial integrity and stability of Somalia and for the efforts to achieve national reconciliation. It welcomed the signing and implementation of the agreement concluded in Addis Ababa on 15th March between the Somali TFG and Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’a, and the TFG’s agreement with Puntland on 12th April. At the previous day’s Extraordinary Arab Summit it was agreed to provide the TFG with US$10 million a month to enable it to operate state institutions and implement programmes for security, stability and reconciliation.
The Summit expressed its appreciation of the role of AMISOM. It reaffirmed the need to support its deployment to contribute to maintain security and stability; it affirmed the importance of support to AMISOM and for increasing the size of AMISOM in accordance with the resolution adopted by the AU at the Kampala Summit. It reiterated the call for the international community and the UN Security Council to mobilize resources necessary to meet the challenge of Somalia and start planning for a new and enlarged stage of deployment for AMISOM.
On Sudan, the Summit affirmed the importance of completing negotiations for the post-referendum arrangements in South Sudan, in light of the Mekelle Memorandum of Understanding signed in June, and the outcome of the March IGAD Summit, both of which underlined the need to ensure the full implementation of the CPA to ensure peace, close North-South cooperation, and protection of the rights of all Sudanese people regardless of the results of the Referendum on self determination which should be conducted with full transparency. On Darfur, the Summit expressed satisfaction with regional and international support for the ongoing peace negotiations.
The Summit also agreed to establish an Africa-Arab Fund for Disaster Response in an effort to jointly provide for natural or man-made calamities. The fund is expected to be financed from the budgets of the African Union and League of Arab States, as well as from contributions from African and Arab countries, civil society, private sector and partners.
The Summit underlined the fact that cooperation between Arab and African Countries can play an important role in bringing about sustainable peace and security in the region. The new strategy and its follow-up mechanisms should allow full implementation of the partnership in investment and trade by utilizing the potential that exists between the two regions. Given the current global financial and economic crisis as well as the crisis of food, a stronger partnership in investment, particularly in the agriculture sector, can be expected to contribute largely toward attainment of food security and sustainable development in the two regions. Full implementation of the agreed strategy and action plan can be expected to greatly benefit both regions, but both need to make sure that the agreements reached at the Summit are adhered to, and follow-up mechanisms implemented, unlike the case after the 1977 Summit.