Gender equality was the focus of deliberations at the recent African Union Summit that took place from 6-8 July in Addis Ababa.

Nigeria was elected Chair of the current third session of the AU Assembly, succeeding Mozambique who held the post for the previous session.
Delegates to the AU Summit adopted a “Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa,” agreeing, inter alia, to accelerate the implementation of gender specific measures aimed at combating HIV/AIDS and to implement agreements on Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious disease. Such measures include ensuring that treatment and social services are available to women at the local level, enacting legislation to end discrimination against women living with HIV/AIDS, and increasing budgetary allocations to alleviate women’s burden of care. Other agreements address: women’s participation in the peace process; recruitment of child soldiers and abuse of girls; gender-based violence and trafficking; human rights for women and girls; education and literacy; and promotion of the implementation of legislation that guarantees women’s land, property and inheritance rights.
According to the UN wire, Nigeria’s President and new AU Chair Olusegun Obasanjo said that most, “if not all” African societies were deeply chauvinistic. Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade focused on female genital mutilation as a practice that must be ceased and told fellow AU leaders that they “have a duty to stop” the early marriage of girls. Rwanda’s Paul Kagame identified women as “indispensable” to the process of reconstruction and reconciliation in his country, a decade after genocide terrorized the population. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki urged governments to encourage gender equality in the private sector.
African leaders also adopted a declaration on the ongoing review of the EU Common Agricultural Policy and its impact on trade in commodities with ACP countries, and took decisions on, inter alia, the: vision and mission of the AU, and the strategic plan, programme and budget of the Commission; implementation of NEPAD; report of the Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization; upcoming Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora; hosting of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa; establishment of the Pan African Parliament; and the situation in Darfur, Sudan.
On NEPAD implementation, the decision notes that at current rates of development, many African countries are unlikely to meet the Millennium Development Goals due to lack of resource flows. Delegates resolved to undertake necessary measures to enhance the development of expanded and integrated national development plans and related policies, and to fast-track the adoption of NEPAD programmes as a means towards achieving the MDGs. The decision further notes the importance of agriculture in Africa’s development, and reaffirms commitment and determination to raise food production, reduce hunger and transform rural Africa by way of developing and launching Africa’s Green Revolution. More information is available at: http://www.africa-union.org/home/Welcome.htm