Sisi Arrives in Addis Ababa to Attend 33rd AU Summit

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi arrived Saturday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he will attend the 33rd African Union Summit, dubbed as 33rd AU Summit, due to take place on Feb 9-10, according to Presidential Spokesperson Bassam Rady.

Sisi will hand over Egypt’s chairmanship of the African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government to South Africa.

“President Sisi will take part in the African Peace and Security Council Summit on Libya, in addition to Presidential Mechanism Meeting On the Western Sahara Issue and the African Peer Review Mechanisms (APRM),” Rady added.

[caption id="attachment_89175" align="aligncenter" width="701"] Presidential Spokesperson Bassam Rady.[/caption]

The spokesman also noted that the Egyptian president is expected to hold bilateral talks with a number of African leaders and international figures on the sidelines of the two-day AU Summit.

The assembly will convene in a closed meeting as Sisi will present his country’s achievements during his term in 2019. This 33rd Ordinary Summit, which commenced on 21st January, will run until the 10th of February.

[caption id="attachment_108616" align="aligncenter" width="760"] The AU 33rd Summit Slogan- The Theme of the Year 2020[/caption]

The summit has as theme “Silencing the Guns: Creating Conductive Conditions for Africa’s Development.”

In addition to the key discussions around the Theme of the Year 2020 and the road towards implementation of Africa’s peace and security agenda, other headline issues to be deliberated upon during the summit include, sustainable funding of Africa’s development agenda specifically addressing the scale of assessment and contributions to the AU’s budget; progress made in the implementation of Agenda 2063; operationalization of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA); African candidatures in the international system, the International Criminal Court, and Africa’s Digital Transformation Strategy, according to the official website of the 33rd AU Summit.

33rd AU Summit: Sisi Reaffirms Egypt's Affiliation to Africa

Egypt chaired the AU four times. In 2002, Egypt was disbanded and then turned into the African Union. The Organization of the African Unity was once chaired by late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, headed twice by late President Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat, chaired once, till this moment, by President Sisi.

On Feb. 9, 2019, Sisi succeeded his Rwandan Counterpart Paul Kagame in the AU chairmanship for one year.

In Nov. 2018, at the closing ceremony of the World Youth Forum, Sisi announced that Aswan would be the capital for African youth.

Earlier in December 2017, Egypt was elected during a closed meeting on AU institutional reform to chair the African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government for a year starting Feb. 10, 2019.

Since his inauguration in 2014, the Egyptian president has been reiterating the continent’s rights, and its importance to his country.

In his inauguration speech Sisi stated that: “The advantages a nation has are not just blessings taken for granted. They require a double effort to be maintained and developed. Egypt, the cradle of civilization, was given by God many blessings. Its geography is a mobile history, and its history is a geography that lies in Egypt which is pharaonic by birth and civilization, Arab by language and culture, and African by roots and presence.”