African nations struggle to escape reliance on Europe

The African Union can't have an independent voice, Simon Allison argues, while it is dependent on aid from former colonial powers.

Illustration by Pep Montserrat for The National

Robert Mugabe was in typically bombastic form as he gave his valedictory address to the 26th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa last month. It was the Zimbabwean president’s last act as chairman of the continental body, before handing over to Chad’s Idriss Debby, and he didn’t pull any punches.

As usual, western countries bore the brunt of his verbal assault. Mr Mugabe is a harsh critic of the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. He argued that the West is still meddling in African affairs to the detriment of African people.

“They are everywhere in Africa. If not physically, through NGOs, through spies, through pretenders who come to us and say they are here in Africa to assist us. Even in groups, armed groups in some of our territories. What help is coming from them? Regime change,” Mr Mugabe said.

His comments met with loud applause and cheers from the assembled African heads of state, summit delegates and observers. But a scan of the crowd revealed that not everyone was happy. The western diplomats in the Nelson Mandela Hall – the targets of Mr Mugabe’s vitriol – kept their arms crossed and their faces impassive. They were unimpressed with Mr Mugabe’s critique. Even worse, they knew that they were paying for it. Literally.

The African Union (AU) has never been able to fund itself. Running a Pan-African institution is an expensive business: there are salaries to be paid, per diems to be disbursed and supplies to be purchased (everything from printing paper to flak jackets for peacekeeping missions).

These costs add up quickly: for 2016, the AU’s budget is just under $417 million (Dh1.5 billion). Of this African countries are supposed to contribute just $169,833,340, or just over 40 per cent. The rest, in the AU’s own words, must be “secured from international partners”.

So who is footing the bill? "At the top of the list of AU's development partners are countries such as Canada, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, China and Turkey, as well as organisations such as the World Bank and European Union," reported South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper.

Of these, Europe plays the most significant role.

The EU boasts on its website: “The European Union collectively [EU and its member states] is the biggest contributor to the African Union, supporting more than 80 per cent of the African Union Commission programme budget.” It says the EU Commission alone has spent more than $1.6 billion on the AU since 2003.

The irony is inescapable: even as Mr Mugabe rails against the enduring influence of the colonial powers, he does so from a podium that is largely financed by them.

Not that it buys Europe, or any of the other donors, too much input at AU headquarters.

Liesl Louw-Vaudran, editor of the Peace and Security Council Report, noted: "Initially, certainly the EU had a big influence because of its funding. At AU summits you used to see European heads of state in big numbers being welcomed and even giving speeches at opening ceremonies.

“But with this increasing focus on African solutions for African problems, and specifically [AU commission chairperson] Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s more anti-western stance, that has really diminished. You really see that the EU presence in the inner workings of the AU really isn’t that important.”

Nonetheless, the symbolism is potent. “It’s embarrassing for Africa,” said Ms Louw-Vaudran.

It’s also limiting. Even if European diplomats don’t get too much direct input into planning and policy, the AU knows that it can’t start new projects, or plan its own peacekeeping missions, without first securing outside funding. This means, ultimately, that the international community – and usually western countries – is still able to dictate, to at least some extent, the African agenda.

Attempts to wean the AU off foreign financial assistance have proven difficult, however. Speaking of the need for Africa to truly own the continental body, and referencing a previous AU decision, Mr Mugabe told the summit that “by the end of the next five years, beginning in 2016, we must meet 100 per cent of our operations budget, 75 per cent of our programmes budget and 25 per cent of the peace and security budget”.

This is an ambitious target. Perhaps too ambitious, given that many African countries currently fail to pay their current membership dues. Exactly how many, we don’t know, because the AU is reluctant to release these statistics. The most recent public figures date from January 2008, and reveal that 29 member states were in arrears. There’s little to suggest that the situation has changed.

So the AU must look elsewhere, at alternative funding sources. Last year, it launched the AU Foundation, a fundraising body designed to solicit donations from wealthy African individuals and companies. So far, its most notable donation has been a pledge of 300 head of cattle – from Mr Mugabe himself.

More significantly, the AU is also exploring some kind of continental tax on tourism. The proposal, which has not been approved by member states, envisages a $10 levy on all flight tickets to or from the continent, and a $2 levy on every night spent in a hotel. Deep disagreement over how this tax should be collected and spent means it’s unlikely to be approved anytime soon.

So unlikely, in fact, that some senior AU officials have effectively abandoned the self-financing plan and are instead looking for more foreign funding. In particular, the Arabian Gulf countries have been identified as potential backers. In November last year, AU peace and security council commissioner Smail Chergui led a high-level delegation to Kuwait and the UAE.

At the end of the visit to Abu Dhabi, the AU’s official communique noted: “At the request of the AU delegation, the UAE pledged to consider the possibility of establishing a peace facility in order to contribute to the sustainable, predictable and flexible funding of the African peace and security agenda.”

While financial assistance from the likes of Kuwait and the UAE may be less politically toxic than from the former colonial powers of the EU, it doesn’t solve the AU’s fundamental credibility problem: until it pays for itself, it cannot be truly free from outside influence.

More than half a century after most African countries claimed their independence, it is clear that the finances of the African Union are in need of their own liberation.

Simon Allison is the Africa correspondent for the Daily Maverick in South Africa and a research consultant for the Institute for ­Security Studies