Topic Resources
Agenda 2063 is Africa’s development blueprint to achieve inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development over a 50-year period.
Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy
Promoting Africa’s growth and economic development by championing citizen inclusion and increased cooperation and integration of African states.
Promoting Africa’s growth and economic development by championing citizen inclusion and increased cooperation and integration of African states.
Agenda 2063 is the blueprint and master plan for transforming Africa into the global powerhouse of the future. It is the strategic framework for delivering on Africa’s goal for inclusive and sustainable development and is a concrete manifestation of the pan-African drive for unity, self-determination, freedom, progress and collective prosperity pursued under Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance.
H.E. Mr. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, was appointed to lead the AU institutional reforms process. He appointed a pan-African committee of experts to review and submit proposals for a system of governance for the AU that would ensure the organisation was better placed to address the challenges facing the continent with the aim of implementing programmes that have the highest impact on Africa’s growth and development so as to deliver on the vision of Agenda 2063.
The AU offers exciting opportunities to get involved in determining continental policies and implementing development programmes that impact the lives of African citizens everywhere. Find out more by visiting the links on right.
My fellow Africans! I am pleased to issue this press briefing at the launch of the Inaugural Africa Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. As you might be aware, disasters have become a recurrent phenomenon in Africa and the Africa Union wants to ensure that countries prepared to minimize the losses from these natural hazards hence the DRR Unit embarked on this work. This is the first report since the adoption of the Programme of Action for implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 by the African Union.
As you might have observed in the presentation during the launch, this Report covers the period 2015-2018, using 2015-2016 as the baseline. It measures Africa’s progress on 12 targets (7 global and 5 specific to Africa). Among these targets are reduction of disaster mortalities, economic losses, losses to critical infrastructures and disruption of basic services, increasing domestic resources allocation.
Comparing the two periods (2015-2016) and (2017-2018), the report highlights the following:
1. Africa risk profile is increasing:
a. Hazards are increasing. The number of disasters increased from 311 in 2015-2016 to 474 in 2017-2018.
b. Vulnerability and exposure are increasing.
c. Coping capacity is declining .
2. Disaster mortalities increased from over 31,000 in 2015-2016 to more than 36,000 in 2017-2018
3. However, the number of affected people, I am glad to report, decreased from over 58 million in 2015-2016 to 22 million in 2017-2018
4. Economic losses increased from 2 billion in 2015-2016 to 8 billion in 2017-2018
5. Only 22% of the 50 Countries that participated have DRR strategies in place and 5% of those with strategies are fully implementing them
6. In term of other targets that are specific to Africa, only 1 country (Rwanda is fully on track. Other countries such as Ghana, Algeria, Kenya, and Sudan have made important programme. Kindly refer to the dash board in the report for further details.
As evidenced in the summary above, disasters are on increase and driven mostly by climate change and variability. Natural degradation is also adding another layer to the occurrence of hazards, facilitating even viruses such as Coronavirus to cross species boundary in order to infect humans.
The AU Commission is committed to reducing disaster risks and losses. As an Agronomist, I associate resilience with food security. One of my priorities has been building resilience to Disaster and Climate risks which continue to impact our continent. Drought, floods and pests are some of the hazards threatening food security in Africa. In my interactions with African Ministers responsible for Disaster Risk Reduction at global and Africa’s fora, I have always insisted that Disaster Risk Reduction is a matter of survival and that resilience building must be our ways of life.
In conclusion, I call upon our member states and RECs to continue to put more efforts on reducing disaster risks and further requests our development partners to enhance collaboration on disaster risk reduction.
Thank you for you kind attention!
Agenda 2063 is Africa’s development blueprint to achieve inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development over a 50-year period.
Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy