President Cyril Ramaphosa had his work cut out when he took on the chairmanship of the African Union this year.

He is committed to steering the continental body along its final bumpy stretch of road to the ambitious goal of silencing the Guns in 2020.

More importantly, the bean counters argue, he  has to oversee  the final implementation of the African Free Trade Agreement.

Both of these face an existential threat from COVID 19.

Silencing the guns means ending all wars, civil conflict, violence conflict, and gender-based violence on the continent.

Herculean does not being to describe this task.

Since their inception, African conflicts have gobbled up the lion’s share of United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Deploying the blue helmets currently takes up an amount approaching $8 billion a year. That is $1 billion more than the overall budget of the world organisation.

Of the 13 active UN peacekeeping operations around the planet, no fewer than seven – Western Sahara, Darfur, Central African Republic, Abyei, South Sudan, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo – are in Africa.

The latter is the largest and most expensive blue helmet operation, taking up 20 000 of the 100 000 UN peacekeepers deployed worldwide.

To put some perspective on this, the number of UN troops deployed in the DRC is half the number of US troops stationed in Germany.

The United States currently picks up 28% of the UN peacekeeping tab which is less than one percent of total US defense spending – about as much as Washington spends in a month on its military operation in Afghanistan.

African leaders have for a time sought to pay more for peacekeeping in their determination to give credibility to the principle of African solutions for African problems. 

The best they can manage is a 25:75 split in costs with  the UN and this has yet to be inked.

As the battle with the COVID 19 pandemic turns the G7 economies on their heads, African countries know that they will feel the cost even  more keenly.

They are having to go to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for money simply to feed their people.

The Bretton Woods institutions are obliged to make their assistance conditional on the recipients adhering to strict austerity policies.

Silencing the Guns and implementing an African Free Trade Agreement are undeniably desirable.

Silencing the Nevertheless AU chairman Cyril Ramaphosa will be hard pressed to convince the lenders that these projects take priority over fiscal discipline and  financing the bare necessities.  

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Special envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to the Great Lakes Huang Xia urges the international community not to let up on its support for the region.

Huang Xia says the number of coronavirus infections in the Great Lakes approaches 5 000. COVID 19 has killed 131.

The strict travel restrictions and quarantine has brought agriculture, mining and transportation to a standstill in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan. 

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Kenyan farmers are posting pictures of swarms like the Biblical plague, so large that they block out the sun.

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The desert locusts have hit  eight African countries where at least 20 million people are food insecure because of the three deadly ‘C.s’ : conflict, climate change and COVID 19.

In addition to Kenya they include Somalia, Uganda, South Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Sudan,

They have stayed and produced a new generation because of favorable conditions including above-average rainfall.

Pesticide to eradicate or at least thin them has been blocked by the coronavirus lockdown.

The swarms generally number 150 million per square kilometer, devouring every leaf where they land. Driven by the wind they can travel 150 kilometers a day.

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They are all small, relatively remote and have tests rates either extremely low or not all.

South Africa continues to top the continental table of COVID 19 infections.

Its1462 cases recorded this morning are far and away ahead of second place Algeria which has 986 cases.

Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia follow that.

The African countries that have not recorded COVID19 cases are Comoros, Lesotho, Sao Tome and Principe, South Sudan  and Western Sahara.

All of these fall into the World Health Organisation’s remote category mentioned when it confirmed that the global infections exceed one million.

The total number of African deaths from COVID 19 is currently 290.

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Rawdans will, therefore spend the Easter holiday as home, permitted to leave only to buy food medicine or essential supplies.

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Rwanda has 82 confirmed COVID 19 infections. The figures went up by eight overnight.

It’s the highest in a region where Kenya has 81, Uganda 44, Tanzania 19 and Burundi two.

South Sudan has no recorded cases but also has no record of testing.

The heavy-handed Rwanda President has had not trouble enforcing the lockdown which has closed land borders and airports.

How he restores the economy driving prosperity and change in his crowded, mountainous country is a problem for another day

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General Gamal al-Din Omar died of a heart attack in neighbouring South Sudan where he was negotiating with rebel groups.

The head of Sudan’s transitional government General Abdel Fatah al Burhan says the nation mourns a man seeking to bring stability to a country that has been shaky since last year’s fall of 30-year military dictator Omar al Bashir.

General Gamal al-Din Omar was a member of the power sharing transitional government comprising the military and civilian groups that last year brought down Bashir.

He died in Juba where he was involved in talks with Sudanese rebel groups he was trying to bring into the political process.

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He has also prayed for and end to wars in Africa.

There was a heavy African flavour to the traditional Christmas message read by Pope Francis.

He prayed for migrants seeking refuge from violence and better lives for their families, and urged the United Nations to take more muscular actions to deal with their plight.

And he prayed for peace in Burkina Faso where a Christmas Eve attack by jihadis has left 35 people – many of them women – dead.

He also prayed for South Sudan, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Nigeria.

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It could spread to at least five other countries in the region.

In one Somali town the residents have started eating the pests.

The locust plague is the worst in a quarter of a century.

It has stripped the cereal grass teff and maize being harvested on 70 000 hectares in Somalia and eastern Ethiopia.

With climatic conditions favourable to their breeding and governments in the region poorly equipped to fight the plague, locusts could spread in to Kenya, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan and South Sudan. 

In the central Somali town of Adado, residents have started eating the locusts after Islamic scholars reportedly declared them Halaal. 

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The UN health body’s emergency committee determined in Geneva yesterday that making such a declaration would have unwanted consequences for the Central African giant where more than 1400 people have died from the deadly hemorrhagic disease since last July.

WHO Director General Tedros Ghbreyesus acknowledges that EBOLA is very much an emergency for those affected by it.

The WHO emergency committee says the spread of the disease into Uganda is an extraordinary event of deep concern.

But the danger of it spreading into Rwanda and South Sudan is limited.

The declaration of a public health event of international concern, which would trigger more funding but also a travel ban, is not warranted. 

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Addis Ababa says it does not know how the offending chart got there and has replaced it with the logo of the department of foreign affairs.

The map shows Somalia as part of Ethiopia, but accurately outlines the breakaway Somaliland which is not internationally recognized.

At first sight, it might hark back to the bloody history between Ethiopia and Somalia. 

They’ve been fighting border wars since 1964.

International forces were involved in the Ogaden war between 1977 and 1978.

But the Ethiopian cartographer has left his diplomatic compatriots more to apologise for.

The offending map shows the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo as one country.

And it does not separate  Sudan and South Sudan.

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