Organisation of African Unity Founded
In May 1963, leaders of thirty-two independent African states met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and signed the charter creating the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). It was the first continent-wide political body of the post-colonial era, and it gave Africa's newly sovereign governments a shared forum to defend their independence, coordinate policy, and press for the end of colonial rule elsewhere on the continent. Its founding marked a high point of the pan-African idea, even though the organisation that emerged was more modest than many of its champions had hoped.
The background was the rapid wave of decolonisation that followed the Second World War. Ghana became independent in 1957, and by 1960, often called the "Year of Africa," more than a dozen more states had joined it. Pan-Africanism, a movement with roots in the African diaspora and in early twentieth-century congresses, now had governments to carry it forward. But these governments disagreed sharply about what unity should mean. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana urged rapid political union, a "United States of Africa." Others, including Nigeria's leaders and most of the so-called Monrovia group, favored cooperation among sovereign states with no surrender of authority. A rival Casablanca group took a more radical line, though less uniformly so than the label suggests.
The Addis Ababa summit, hosted by Emperor Haile Selassie, largely resolved this debate in favor of the cautious approach. The charter committed members to promoting solidarity, defending sovereignty and territorial integrity, eradicating colonialism, and encouraging international cooperation. Its principles included non-interference in members' internal affairs and respect for existing borders, which were inherited from colonial partition. Addis Ababa became the organisation's headquarters, and a secretariat led by an administrative secretary-general was established. A Liberation Committee was also created to support independence movements in territories still under colonial or white-minority rule.
The OAU's record is debated. It helped coordinate African diplomatic positions, supported liberation struggles in places such as Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa, and mediated some border disputes. Its commitment to fixed borders arguably helped avoid wider interstate wars over colonial boundaries. Yet its strict non-interference principle limited its ability to respond to civil wars, coups, and abuses by member governments, and critics sometimes called it a "club of heads of state." It also lacked strong enforcement powers and resources.
By the late 1990s, many African leaders felt the organisation needed reform. In 2002 the OAU was succeeded by the African Union, whose founding act allows for intervention in grave circumstances such as genocide and war crimes. The 1963 meeting nonetheless remains a landmark: the moment when independent Africa first organized itself as a continental community.