About the Authors: Michael Battle serves as U.S. Ambassador to the African Union and the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, and Ertharin Cousin serves as U.S. Representative to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome.

We congratulate the African Union (AU) for calling together African Nations to demonstrate their support as partners with the international community to address the serious drought and famine facing the Horn of Africa. At an AU-organized pledging conference last week, Africans also expressed their deep appreciation to the international community for its overwhelming continued support to humanitarian relief as well as to assisting the African continent build capacity for addressing future crises.

The African Union has been using the phrase, “African Solutions for African Problems,” to mean that Africa as a continent must endeavor to be full partners in addressing African problems. The African Union has never suggested that it wants to solve its problems in isolation from the international community rather it has consistently asserted that it wants to insert African… more »