الاتحاد الأفريقي
UNION AFRICAINE
UNIÃO AFRICANA
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia P. O. Box 3243 Telephone: +251 11 551 7700 / +251 11 518 25 58/ Ext 2558
Web site: www.au.int.
DIRECTORATE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION
PRESS RELEASE N°37/AU SUMMIT
22nd Ordinary Session of the African Union Assembly concludes: A summary of key decisions
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 31 January 2014- The 22nd Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Summit holding on the theme: "Agriculture and Food Security" ended Friday 31 January 2014 at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with the adoption of key decisions by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government.
The following is a summary of decisions made by the Assembly. Full decisions will be posted on the AU website www.au.int in due course:
The Assembly approved the offer of the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire to host the African Statistical Training Centre that will be based in Yamoussoukro (Institut Polytechnique Felix HouphouetBoingy), and resolved to allocate adequate resources for the production and use of statistics, in line with the principles of the African Charter on Statistics. This is in pursuit of implementing the African Charter on statistics and the strategy for the harmonisation of statistics in Africa.
Assembly welcomed the establishment by the AU Commission, of a panel of independent experts to assess the status of the operationalization of the African Standby Force and its Rapid Deployment Capability (RDC), as well as the development of proposals for the operationalization of the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC), and requested the Chairperson of the Commission to submit a comprehensive report on the implementation of its Declaration at the next ordinary session in June/July 2014.
Under the discussion on implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Assembly commended the Commission and partners for the efforts in enhancing Africa's visibility in COP.11/UNCCD in Windhoek, Namibia; and renewed its commitment to the Namibian Declaration to enhance the implementation of the UNCCD in Africa in order to address land degradation, desertification, biodiversity loss and effects of drought, and to promote sustainable development on the continent. It endorsed the establishment of an African working group on desertification and sustainable land management, to be convened by the Commission.
While expressing its disappointment that the request by Kenya supported by AU, to the United Nations (UN) Security Council to defer the proceedings initiated against the President and Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya has not yielded the positive result expected; and that
the request by the Union to the UN Security Council to defer the proceedings initiated against the President of the Republic of The Sudan has not been acted upon to date; the Assembly, in its discussions on the implementation of decisions on the International Criminal Court decided that: