The African Union  General Assembly is being hailed for its historic decision to institute a levy of 0,2 percent on all eligible imports of its members states, in order to address the funding challenges the AU has faced since its inception. The organisation’s reliance on the  external funding of its projects, including peace missions has been a hindering factor and has until now reduced the organisation’s ability to tackle some of the crisis that have threatened the continent’s stability in recent history.

The Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, welcomes the ground-breaking decision of the Assembly.

The decision by the Assembly to operationalize the African Union Peace Fund, in order to finance the peace and security operations of the Union, through the provision of USD65 million by each of the continent’s five regions per year through the import levy, is expected gradually increase to USD80 million per region by the year 2020. This is in fulfilment of the commitment by the Heads of State and Government, made in 2015, to finance 25 percent of the cost of African Union peace support operations.

In hailing this decision, the Chairperson of the Commission stressed that, in addition to the financial commitments made in relation to the Peace Fund, the Heads of State and Government have also endorsed the concept of the Peace Fund with three windows, namely Preventive Diplomacy and Mediation, Institutional Capacity, and Peace Support Operations, as well as the non-financial aspects, including the decision-making process for seeking funding from UN assessed contributions for the remaining 75 percent of the cost of peace support operations, and the human rights and code of conduct compliance framework for Peace Support Operations.