Call for action ahead of OAU summit

Zambia, host to the upcoming Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit, has called for “concerted action” to deal with the continent’s challenges. “The challenges that our founding fathers sought to address 38 years ago remain alive and relevant in today’s world,” Zambian Vice President Enoch Kavindele told the OAU’s council of ministers at a welcoming ceremony on Thursday. “New and even more complex challenges which require much more concerted action and common vision have been added to the list of tasks that we must resolve,” Kavindele was quoted saying in a Xinhua report. “It is only by acting in unison that we can guarantee the sustenance of the OAU, or the African Union (AU) which we are establishing.” The three-day 74th ordinary session of OAU Council of Ministers is scheduled to end on Saturday after hammering out an agenda for the summit from 9-11 July. The AU, modelled loosely on the European Union, was the brainchild of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the report said. It would exist of an executive, a central bank, a monetary fund, a parliament and a court of justice. In another move, the South African presidency announced that African representatives had decided to merge two competing plans for the continent’s development - the Millennium Africa Recovery Plan led by South African President Thabo Mbeki and the Omega Plan, spearheaded by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade. Channel Africa reported that among other things, Mbeki’s plan was designed to present a common front when Africa dealt with the developed world. The Omega Plan set goals and defined financial means to narrow infrastructural gaps, the report said. The South African presidency said the merged plan would be presented to the upcoming OAU summit.