Statement of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, on the Occasion of the Handing Over Ceremony

Speeches

Mar 14, 2025

Excellency Mr. João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of the

Republic of Angola and Current Chairman of the African Union,

Excellency, Mr. Taye Atske Selassie, President of the Federal

Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,

Excellency, Mr. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Incoming Chairperson of the AU

Commission,

Excellency Mrs. Selma Haddadi, Incoming Deputy Chairperson, AU

Commission,

Excellency Madam Outgoing Deputy Chairperson,

Distinguished Commissioners,

Excellencies Ambassadors, Permanent Representatives,

Distinguisheed of the Diplomatic Corps, accredited to the AU,

Representatives of Regional Economic Communities and Regional

Mechanisms/ Staff of the African Union,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

All Protocols observed,

May I, first of all, thank Their Excellencies, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of the Republic of Angola and Current Chairman of the African Union and Taye Atske Selassie, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, for having graced this Handing over

Ceremony with their presence.

I would then like to address you, Excellency, Current Chairman, to reiterate my sincere congratulations. You know the great esteem and the high consideration you enjoy with your colleagues, Heads of State and Government and all of us. You have all my encouragement and you will

always have my unwavering support.

Finally, I would like to reiterate, Mr. President Taye Selassie, my grateful thanks and gratitude to the Government and people of Ethiopia for the brotherly and warm hospitality accorded to us during our stay in Addis

Ababa.

To you, my brother and friend, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, my long standing colleague, this Organisation is not foreign to you, you know it very well and I have no doubt about your capability to carry it to new heights. But you can count, without reservation, on my availability, whenever you deem that we can be useful to you in anything for the success of the difficult and exhilarating mission

that you are about to embark upon.

To you my dear sister Selma Haddadi, Deputy Chairoerson of the Commission, we have known you as a worthy Representative of your great country, Algeria. We know the strength of your commitment and your professionalism. We have no doubt that you will perform your mission

efficiently for good results.

To my Brothers and Sisters Commissioners, your selection by the Panel of Eminent Personalities already, in itself, sheds an important light on your qualities. Your confirmation by our Policy Organs, underscores such virtues and good qualifications. I have no doubt that all of this augurs well for a great job and significant results for the benefit of our

Continental Organisation.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

May I pay a deserving tribute to my sister, the outgoing Deputy Chairperson, Dr Monique, you have faced, days and nights, the pitfalls of an administration with the rules, practices and burden that can be everything, except the facility, the quick action and response to challenges. I would like to pay a warm tribute to you, for your tenacity and your endurance.

I extend my gratitude to the Commissioners Joséfa Sacko, Albert Muchanga, Amani Abou Zeid, Minata Cessouma Samate, Bankole Adoye, Mohamed Bel Hocine. Each of you six made wholehearted efforts to promote the Agenda 2063 and the programmes of the Department of which you were in charge.

In this collective work you have all shown, with your respective teams, immense technical and professional qualities that have raised the status of our Organisation in a difficult Regional and international context. I congratulate you and thank you sincerely.

The Heads of the Organs and Specialised Technical Agencies also placed themselves in the forefront of our struggles for a better future for the peoples of the Continent. I wish to thank and congratulate them. Finally, I must proudly stress the beautiful team spirit and brotherhood that marked, during these eight years, our support for the crowning of our collective action.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I had already told the Executive Council and the Assembly the feeling of these moments of dreamt freedom and meaningful separation. The peoples, the places and the air floating, at the top, all this is a source of joy, happiness certainly, but also of something that you already feel missing. You maty rest assured that I will not forget so quickly, maybe never, these moments.

On this occasion, I would like to express my thanks to all my colleagues and to all the staff of the Union, here present or elsewhere, building the great PanAfricanist project. I would like to congratulate them on their remarkable work with tangible and lasting results despite the difficulties of all kinds and the immense challenges.

To the Representatives of the Staff Association, I would like to tell them that my sympathy, my gratitude and my esteem will remain engraved, that I have known them directly or simply heard about their endurance and their sacrifices.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I stress the expectations and challenges you will face but also the opportunities that will open up. We did what we were able to do. I repeated that it certainly had shortcomings and inadequacies. I am sure that with your new impetus and your faith in our Organisation, you will go beyond the frontiers which, today, are ours and the heritage that we leave you.

Everywhere, as you know as much as I do, we opened vistas. It will behove you to deepen, correct, change, imagine new solutions that we have not been able to establish or find. The dynamics of change will be

your best support. Dare to tread where we could not go!

In this new era you can count on the dynamism of the economically active forces of the Continent, in particular, women and youths, but also and very modestly on us, who today are bidding you farewell. We will remain disciplined soldiers, even in retirement, to contribute what we have left

of energy and what we have been able to garner as experience.

I wish you all full success in this exhilarating as you take the reins of the

Organisation.

I thank you.

AUC

H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat - Former Chairperson

Agenda 2063

Flagship Projects

Integrated High Speed Train Network

Connecting African capitals and commercial centers through a High-Speed Train Network; facilitating the movement of goods, factor services and people as well as reducing transport costs and relieving congestion of current and future systems through increased rail connectivity.

African Commodities Strategy

Transforming Africa from a raw materials supplier by enabling countries to add value, extract higher rents from commodities, integrate into global value chains promote diversification anchored in value addition and local content development.

African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)

Accelerating intra-African trade and boosting Africa’s trading position in the global market by strengthening Africa’s common voice and policy space in global trade negotiations.

The African Passport & Free Movement of People

Removing restrictions on Africans’ ability to travel, work and live within their own continent by transforming restrictive laws and promoting visa free travel to enhance movement of all African citizens in all African countries.

Silencing the Guns by 2020

Ending all wars, civil conflicts, gender-based violence, violent conflicts and preventing genocide in the continent by 2020.

The Grand Inga Dam Project

Generating an estimated 43,200MW of power to support current regional power pools and their combined service to transform Africa from traditional to modern sources of energy and ensure access to clean and affordable electricity.

Single African Air-Transport Market

Promoting intra-regional connectivity between the capital cities of Africa by creating a single unified air transport market in Africa, as an impetus to the continent’s economic integration and growth agenda.

African Economic Forum

Multi-stakeholder meeting bringing together the Africa’s policy makers, private sector, academia and civil society to reflect on accelerating Africa’s socio- economic development and transformation by harnessing its vast resources.

African Financial Institutions

Accelerating integration and economic development through the establishment of organisations which will play a pivotal role in the mobilization of resources and management of the African financial sector.

The Pan African e-Network

Transforming Africa into an e-Society by implementing policies and strategies that lead to transformative e-applications and services in Africa such as broad band terrestrial infrastructure, cyber security and revolutionary bio and nanotechnology industries.

Africa Outer Space Strategy

Strengthening Africa’s use of outer space to bolster development in critical sectors such as agriculture, disaster management, remote sensing, climate forecast, banking and finance, defense and security.

African Virtual & e-University

Using ICT based programmes to increase access to tertiary and continuing education in Africa by reaching large numbers of students and professionals in multiple sites simultaneously.

Cyber Security

Incorporating emerging technologies in Africa’s development plans and ensuring these technologies are used for the benefit of African individuals, institutions and nation states by ensuring data protection and safety online.

Great African Museum

Preserving and promoting African cultural heritage by creating awareness of Africa’s vast, dynamic and diverse cultural artefacts and Africa’s continuing influence on world cultures in art, music, language, science, and so on.

Encyclopaedia Africana

Provide an authoritative resource on the authentic history of Africa and African life.

NOW

Agenda 2063

Key Resources