Prosperity, peace and development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lords International Relations Committee launches new inquiry

In 2015 the African Union outlined, in Agenda 2063, its strategy to achieve the Pan African Vision of “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international arena”. In February 2019, the UK and the AU signed a Joint Communiqué on the African Union-United Kingdom Partnership. The shared priorities set out in the Communique, and the areas that the Committee will be looking at regarding UK-Africa Union co-operation, are:

• Strengthening resilience across the continent through continued co-operation in support of the African Union's peace-making and peacekeeping role, and enhanced policy engagement. Particular areas identified by the AU are: South Sudan, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin and Libya. 
  
• Driving prosperity by mobilising investment including the promotion of UK-Africa trade and investment, the African Continental Free Trade Area, investing in people, and building opportunities to deliver a skilled workforce through shared work on education, science and technology and skills development.
  
• Creating the conditions to allow full participation of women and disabled persons in our societies.
  
• Recognise the added value of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and ensure that migration and human mobility in Africa is well managed both to migrants themselves and to host/origin countries for socioeconomic development as per the AU Agenda 2063. Support initiatives aimed at preventing irregular migration including protection of victims of trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants.
  
• Promote and protect an equitable and inclusive rules-based international system to ensure that countries and individuals have the freedom, security, justice and mechanisms to prosper, and includes co-operation on global issues such as climate change, human rights and serious organised crime. Supporting the AU's desire to find African solutions for African problems, this includes UN-assessed contributions for AU-led Peace Support Operations authorised by the UN Security Council.

Chair of the House of Lords International Relations Committee, Baroness Anelay of St Johns, said:

“The Committee will examine how the Government is fulfilling the commitment, made in February 2019, to support the Africa Union to achieve an ‘integrated, prosperous, and peaceful Africa'. The inquiry will focus on the UK's engagement with Sub-Saharan African countries, and consider issues including prosperity, peace and development. Our inquiry is open to contributions and we urge any organisations, individuals and interested parties to send in written evidence to inform the inquiry.”