Africa Up Close

On November 2, 2022, representatives from Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a cessation of hostilities agreement, ending an almost two-year war that had devastated the country. The agreement, which was brokered in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, was the result of several days of mediation talks led by the African Union (AU) and facilitated by a team comprised of the AU High Representative for the Horn of Africa: former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, and former Deputy President of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and U.S. President Donald Trump alongside First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and First Lady Melania Trump during a visit at the White House. Photo courtesy of The White House via Flickr Creative Commons.

Hardly had South African President Cyril Ramaphosa settled into his chairmanship of the African Union (AU) and his compatriot, Wamkele Mene, assumed leadership as Secretary-General (SG) of the fledgling and still largely aspirational African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement before both began to face a baptism by fire in the form of the United States’ and Kenya’s intent to pursue their own bilateral free trade agreement—a formidable challenge to the AfCFTA. How Ramaphosa as 2020 AU Chair and Mene as AfCFTA’s first SG confront this bilateralist challenge to continental trade integration will determine much about the AfCFTA’s future as Africa’s flagship for achieving global economic power status within the world’s fast-shifting geo-economic/strategic landscape.