Africa to Achieve Two Agendas in 47 Years: Can String Summits Help?

Africa, like other continents, is making efforts through a variety of policies, programmes, and initiatives to address issues, challenges, and provide needs for people and organizations in order to achieve a prosperous continent. Since the advent of globalization, which allows nations and people to collaborate and partner on various projects, Africa has never failed to embrace the concept. According to public affairs analysts, social commentators on the continent, and citizens, the results have been mixed over the years. They believe that Africa is developing and addressing identified issues at a slower rate than the global north.

Despite their mixed feelings, national, regional, and continental organizations continue to develop agendas, goals, and targets, as well as implementation strategies for their realization. Agenda 2063, for example, was conceived by the African Union, the continent’s alliance organization dedicated to promoting socioeconomic and political interests through a multicentric approach. The agenda should be completed within the next 40 years. However, with the need to work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, our analyst observes that the continent is pursuing two agendas that must be completed in 47 years amidst structural and policy challenges across the continent.

Agenda 2063 was created in accordance with some of the goals and targets outlined in the Global Agenda [SDGs]. It has 20 goals. There is a wide disparity in the achievement of goals and targets in Agenda 2063 priority areas.  The African Union’s recently released report [PDF] captures the disparity further, establishing that targets and goals of priority areas relevant to people’s and organizations’ sustainability were less uniformly achieved in 2019 and 2021.

Data were available to assess progress toward Goals 15 [A Fully Functional and Operational African Peace and Security Architecture] and 18 [Engaged and Empowered Youth and Children]. However, the decrease in progress made [see Exhibit 1] necessitates critical analysis, the development of sustainable rescue plans, as well as all-encompassing implementation strategies. Our analyst points out that in this context, African political figures, businesspeople, and civic-minded individuals all have important roles to play.

Can Summit Assist?

Instead of seeking “foreign solutions,” our analyst believes that the continent requires African solutions to African problems. Between 2014 and 2022, African leaders attended several summits outside the continent in order to gain partners from the global north as well as some countries in the global south that are also emerging as “superpowers” and competing with countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France, among others. Summit has been one of the tools used by established and emerging superpowers to attract African leaders over the last decade. The majority of the summits have taken place outside of Africa, with the word “Africa” appearing prominently in the titles and themes at the second level position.  For example, the United States-Africa, China-Africa, and the United Kingdom-Africa, among others, indicate that it is Africa that needs to be interpellated to their territories in order to find solutions to Africa’s challenges or to provide public goods in the areas of agriculture, health, infrastructure, and education.

Going to the global north for financial support through summits, according to our analyst, is antithetical to achieving Agenda 2063 Goal 20. The goal expressly states that Africa will bear full responsibility for financing its own development. The question is how long Africa will continue to hold string summits in order to raise funds and acquire relevant human capacity to ensure its development.

Political and business leaders, as well as professionals, need to critically consider this issue. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that some of the summit organizers believe Africa has the necessary capacity to advance socially, economically and politically. President Joe Biden recently stated, “African voices, African leadership, and African innovation are all critical to addressing the most pressing global challenges and to realizing the vision we all share: a world that is free, a world that is open, prosperous, and secure.” This was said at the U.S.-Africa Summit Leaders Session on Partnering on the African Union’s Agenda 2063. This suggests that, given her wealth of natural resources and consistently increasing human capacity, Africa is still the world’s future.