Algeria - African Union

• As a founding country of the African Union, Algeria has always worked to promote the role of this Organization in the priority areas of peace and security, governance, integration and representation of the continent at the international level. To this end, our country contributes fully to efforts aimed at providing the AU with the tools and means necessary to effectively deploy joint African action.
• Algeria has actively participated in the development of Agenda 2063, which constitutes the Union's roadmap for the realization of the vision of an "integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, led by its citizens and representing a dynamic force on the international arena”.
• Algeria is currently working, together with other Member States and AU organs, to achieve the 7 aspirations and 14 flagship projects included in this Agenda. To show its degree of commitment in this area, our country was among the first 9 Member States to submit their national progress report on the implementation of the first Ten-Year Plan (TYP) of the Agenda 2063, covering the period (2013-2019).
• Algeria fully participates in the process of reform of the African Union, initiated in July 2016, aimed at enabling the continental organization to best fulfill its missions and adapt to an international situation imposed by new challenges. The main priorities of this process are: i) to provide the Union with a leaner and performance-oriented structure, ii) to modernize management methods, iii) to achieve a better division of labor between the Member States, the Regional Economic Communities and the African Union, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.

Peace and security:

• Algeria subscribes to the realization of the flagship project of the agenda 2063 on "silencing the guns in Africa" in order to achieve "a continent free of conflict" and rid of the vestiges of colonialism. Within this framework, it works towards the full operationalization of all the components of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), which constitutes the continental mechanism for conflict prevention, management and resolution (the main components of the APSA are: the Peace and Security Council, the African Standby Force, the Military Staff Committee, the Panel of the Wise, the Early Warning System and the AU Peace Fund).
• Algeria hosts the headquarters of the African Centre for Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT) and the African Police Cooperation Mechanism (AFRIPOL). These bodies dedicated to the fight against terrorism and its related phenomena are intended to boost cooperation and coordination of efforts of member states in the search for African solutions to the crises prevailing on the continent.
• In addition, our country contributes to the African Standby Force (ASF), which is one of the pillars of the APSA, through the North African Regional Capacity (NARC). Its objective is to achieve full operationalization of the ASF for rapid deployment and prompt response to crises.
• Given its experience and expertise in the fight against terrorism, the African Union has entrusted Algeria with the task of coordinating the prevention and fight against terrorism in Africa. Under this mandate, Algeria has submitted a memorandum in which it proposes actions to protect Africa and its peoples from the terrorist threat. This action focuses on prevention, awareness-raising and mobilization, and is based on strengthening national and regional capacities to combat terrorism as well as promoting ever-closer cooperation between the member countries of the African Union and the international community as a whole.

Integration :

• Continental integration is among the African priorities of Algeria, which has taken, since its independence, several initiatives to achieve continental structuring projects such as:

1. The Trans-Saharan Road (RTS), a project that dates back to 1964.
2. The Trans-Saharan road on the Algiers-Lagos axis is entirely built and paved on the Algerian territory from Algiers to the border with Niger on a linear of 2415km;
3. The "Trans-Saharan Gas-Pipeline" (TSGP), which is an Algerian-Nigerian project, with a total length of 4128, is part of the implementation of NEPAD;
4. Trans-Sahara Optical Fiber Backbone Project, a project initiated by Algeria in 2003, within the framework of NEPAD. It provides for a terrestrial fiber optic link connecting Algeria, Niger, Mali, Chad, and Nigeria.

• Algeria is also among the five countries that initiated the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), based on the idea of freeing the continent from conflict and underdevelopment. NEPAD has now been transformed into the African Union Development Agency, which is responsible for: i) monitoring the implementation of continental and regional projects aimed at continental integration, ii) serving as a technical interface with foreign partners, and iii) mobilizing resources for the realization of development projects included in the Agenda 2063.
• Algeria also attaches great importance to the realization of one of the flagship projects of Agenda 2063 which is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Our country took an active part in the negotiations that led to the AfCFTA agreement.

Governance:

• Algeria attaches particular importance to the role of the African Union in the promotion of good governance and human rights, in accordance with the provisions of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitutive Act of the AU, which stress the importance of good governance, popular participation, the rule of law and human rights. For its part, Agenda 2063 includes among its seven aspirations that of building "an Africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights and justice”.
• At the 35th Ordinary Summit of the OAU held in Algiers in July 1999, the continental organization adopted, on Algeria’s initiative, the declaration on the unconstitutional changes of government in Africa. This declaration served as the basis for the adoption of the African Charter of Democracy, Elections and Governance in 2007.
• Algeria is also among the founding countries of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), created in 2003, within the framework of NEPAD, for the voluntary self-assessment of governance performance. As part of the institutional reform, AU member states decided in 2018 to strengthen the capacity of the APRM to fulfill its mandate, which has now been expanded to include the evaluation of the implementation of Agenda 2063.

International Representation :

• Algeria sees the African Union as the ideal framework for forging common positions and pooling efforts to better defend the interests of its member states in international forums. It is for this reason that Algeria has always participated in the formulation and defense of common African positions on major international issues such as the Sustainable Development Goals, climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament and the reform of the United Nations (Ezulwini consensus).