Agence France-Presse quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on the agenda for this week’s African Union summit:
Peter J. Pham, director of the Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council, said the AU’s slow response to the crisis in CAR points to a deeper institutional weakness when it comes to rapidly evolving conflicts.
“For all the talk — we’ve had it for well over a decade — about an African standby force, the fact is that when emergencies come up, it starts all over again, there is no standby force,” he said, referring to AU’s plans for an on-call peacekeeping force, which has yet to materialise.
“There’s very little concrete action being done,” he added.