African Union
Imagining and forgetting

Imagining and forgetting

The AU’s glossy new headquarters conceals the site’s notorious past as an execution chamber and burial ground for dissidents, vagrants and criminals The concrete skeleton of the new African Union (AU) headquarters...

Democracy hypocrisy

Democracy hypocrisy

Instead of toppling autocrats across Africa, the AU’s lip service to democracy props them up Critics have long argued that the African Union (AU) supports the authoritarian rule of many of the leaders of its member...

Resourceful consensus

Resourceful consensus

Resource governance is crucial to growth © Helge Fahrnberger A new natural resource governance vision aims to build Africa’s economies through cooperation between the extractives industry and the continent’s other...

Valuing women and girls

Valuing women and girls

Despite conflicting legislation, the practices of female genital mutilation and child marriage are on the wane as a result of the AU’s continental approach to eradicating them More than 700 million women and girls...

Fair’s fair: giving the AU its due

Fair’s fair: giving the AU its due

A 2013 sitting of the AU, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia © Albert González Farran, UNAMID It seems unfair that the AU is held to higher standards than other regional blocs, when it sometimes accomplishes more The African Union...

Morocco in, SADR out

Morocco in, SADR out

The 2011 17th Ordinary African Union Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea © Embassy of Equatorial Guinea. Image Flickr Morocco’s return to the AU could herald the expulsion of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, once...