July, 2007

“Africa Must Unite” greets each visitor to the website of the African Union and is the theme of this week’s 9th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union. The call to create a unified political and economic community, similar to the European Union, has been supported by many as the key to solving Africa’s problems of poverty, under-development, and the free movement of peoples. Economic leaders already hope to release a unified currency for the East Africa bloc and the West Africa bloc – combining Anglophone and Francophone communities – by 2009. AU Commission Chairman, Alpha Oumare Konare noted that "…political integration…will give us more clout and bargaining power when negotiating with other blocs." He announced his intention to emerge as a united front, one of the original goals of the AU, as soon as 2015.