Michael Woldemariam on Challenges Facing African Democracy (Part 1)

Democracy in Question?

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Glossary

Tigray War

(03:21 or p.1 in the transcript)

Between 2020 and 2022, Ethiopia fought a war with militants from its northernmost region of Tigray, then under the control of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The conflict was one of the deadliest in recent world history and drew international attention for a preponderance of alleged war crimes, human rights abuses, and ethnic cleansing in Tigray. The war formally ended in November 2022; Tigray was left in ruins, and its capital was turned over to the federal government. Due to the conflict, 5.1 million Ethiopians became internally displaced in 2021 alone, a record for the most people internally displaced in any country in any single year at the time. Thousands also fled to Sudan and other countries in the region. By the time the Pretoria peace agreement took effect, the Tigray War and its associated humanitarian disaster had killed approximately 600,000 people. In late 2022, humanitarian groups were permitted to meaningfully operate in Tigray for the first time since November 2020. source

African Union

(11:37 or p.4 in the transcript)

African Union (AU), intergovernmental organization, was established in 2002, to promote unity and solidarity of African states, to spur economic development, and to promote international cooperation. The African Union (AU) replaced the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU’s headquarters are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The OAU was established on May 25, 1963, and its activities included diplomacy (especially in support of African liberation movements), mediation of boundary conflicts and regional and civil wars, and research in economics and communications. The OAU maintained the “Africa group” at the United Nations (UN) through which many of its efforts at international coordination were channeled. The OAU was instrumental in bringing about the joint cooperation of African states in the work of the Group of 77, which acts as a caucus of developing nations within the UN Conference on Trade and Development. In 2000, in a move spearheaded by Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, it was proposed that the OAU be replaced by a new body, the African Union. The African Union was to be more economic in nature, similar to the European Union, and would contain a central bank, a court of justice, and an all-Africa parliament. A Constitutive Act, which provided for the establishment of the African Union, was ratified by two-thirds of the OAU’s members and came into force on May 26, 2001. After a transition period, the African Union replaced the OAU in July 2002. In 2004 the AU’s Pan-African Parliament was inaugurated, and the organization agreed to create a peacekeeping force, the African Standby Force, of about 15,000 soldiers. source