Africa-Press – Ethiopia. Addis Ababa /ENA/ February 18/2023 Ethiopia is where it is today in no small part because of the tireless efforts of the African Union and the wisdom of its deeply-held belief in the principle of “African solutions to African problems”, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.
The premier made the remark in a statement he delivered at the opening of the 36th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union today.
“When I stood before you last year on this same occasion, Ethiopia was just coming out of a costly conflict. This time I am here to celebrate the signing on November 2nd 2022 of the Pretoria Peace Accord between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF, which has led to the silencing of the guns in the northern part of our country,” Abiy recalled.
At the heart of the principle of African Solutions to African Problems lies a belief in African solidarity, African agency and the equal dignity of all human beings.
The premier mentioned one of the earliest and most powerful expressions of this principle that comes from the opening statement delivered by His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie in his address to the first Summit of the OAU in May 1963.
“His Imperial Majesty acknowledged that future disputes among African countries were only natural. But, he also advised that, when disputes arise, the effort to resolve them ‘must be confined to this continent and quarantined from the contamination of non-African interference.”
The PM therefore noted that “today, each time we assert and reassert the principle of African solutions to African problems, we are only applying the timeless wisdom of our forefathers for the resolution of contemporary challenges.”
According to him, Ethiopia does not just insist on the principle of African solutions for the resolution of its problems. “We also present ourselves at the forefront in helping ourselves and our fellow African countries to resolve challenges.”
He noted that Ethiopia’s leading role in peacekeeping missions, its peacemaking efforts in Sudan, Somalia, and South Sudan as well as the successes in resolving Ethiopia’s long-standing no-war no-peace relationship with Eritrea as prominent examples in this respect.
While the principle of African solutions to African problems is widely raised in the scope of conflict, the premier stressed that it is imperative that “we begin to extend this principle to a wide range of peace and security issues.”
The principle of African solutions to African problems is not, however, a silver bullet to address all our challenges, because not all our problems are the products of our own making, the PM said.
“The challenge of climate change is a case in point. We all know that Africa’s contribution to global warming is insignificant. Yet climate change is already affecting Africa more severely than any other part of the world. To this extent, climate change is an African problem, but its roots lie elsewhere.”
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