Addis Ababa – Angolan president João Lourenço arrived Friday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to participate in the 37th Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU), from 17 to 18 February.
In the Ethiopian capital, the head of state will also attend an extraordinary summit on the re-launching of the peace process in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The meeting on the DRC takes place Friday on the initiative of João Lourenço, in his capacity as acting president of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and African Union mediator in the conflict between the DRC and Rwanda.
It will be attended by nine heads of state from 10 countries, namely Angola, the DRC, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya, who will be joined as guests by Uganda and representatives of the African Union Commission.
The initiative is in line with the recommendations of the last meeting of the military leadership of the Quadripartite Mechanism on the Peace Process in Eastern DRC held in October 2023 in Addis Ababa.
The 37th AU Summit is being held under the slogan "Training Africans for the 21st Century: Building resilient education systems to increase access to inclusive, lifelong, quality and relevant learning in Africa".
The agenda includes the situation of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), which has been going through a crisis of leadership and functioning since the interruption, in August 2023, of Zimbabwe's mandate as president of the body.
It is hoped that the heads of state amend the rules governing its functioning to allow the appointment of a new president or the reappointment of the Zimbabwean MP whose mandate was interrupted as a result of the dissolution of parliament during the last general elections. IZ/ADR/DAN/AMP
