Addis Ababa, 31 October 2018: The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, just concluded a two-day visit to Berlin, Germany.

On 30 October 2018, the Chairperson took part in a progress review meeting on the “Compact with Africa (CwA)”, an initiative launched by the German presidency of the G20 in 2017, to create an enabling environment for investment and mobilize private sector from Germany and other G20 countries to invest in African mega and other projects. It should be noted that a number of African Heads of State and Government participated in the meeting, during which projects financed under the CwA, in the areas of infrastructure, information technology, power generation and rural electrification, as well as medical services, were presented.

On 31 October 2018, the Chairperson held a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel. The two exchanged views on the CwA and how best to maximize its impact on Africa’s development. In that context, the Chairperson briefed the Chancellor on the ongoing efforts to deepen integration on the continent through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and other related initiatives, including negotiations towards harmonized investment standards for the continent under phase 2 of the AfCFTA. He expressed the readiness of the African Union to work with Germany and other partners to attract much higher levels of investments into the continent, keeping in mind its huge potential.

The Chairperson and the Chancellor also exchanged views on the African Union efforts to address the peace and security challenges confronting the continent, as part of the pledge by the African leaders to silence the guns on the continent by 2020. The Chancellor expressed his country’s support to these efforts, including the ongoing initiatives in the Central African Republic and Libya. The Chairperson took the opportunity to highlight the need for predictable and sustainable funding, through United Nations assessed contributions, for African Union-led peace support operations undertaken with the consent of the Security Council.

The Chairperson and the Chancellor discussed the African Union-European Union partnership post-2020. The need for a continent-to-continent partnership, with a crucial African Union role, was emphasized.

Finally, the discussions covered the African Union institutional reform process. The Chairperson outlined the core priorities of the reform, which aims at fundamentally repositioning the African Union to enable it meet the evolving needs of its Member States and the continent. He stressed that this process also entails the review of African Union partnerships to ensure that they contribute more effectively to the attainment of the goals set in Agenda 2063.