At least 30 African Heads of State and Government are expected in Kigali this weekend with more than a dozen having already jetted into the country over the last two days for the 27th African Union Summit.

Today, the principals will hold several sessions, including one on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) and another on newly proposed alternative source of funding for the bloc’s programmes.

While the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, told an editors’ forum on the margins of the ongoing AU Summit that, contrary to popular belief, the AU has been funding over 85 per cent of its development budget since 2009, the Union can hardly take full charge of its activities with someone else footing the bill.

While this is good news to a continent desperate to shake off the shackles of aid dependency, it’s clear that with increased financial contributions from individual member states as well as innovative ways to domestically raise more resources, Africa can make significant headway in addressing some of the most critical challenges it faces today.

Otherwise, like the old adage goes: He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Indeed, following yesterday’s announcement that the Heads of State and Government will today examine new proposals for resource mobilization to ensure that the bloc finances the bulky – if not all – of its budget, one can only hope that the leaders will treat this issue as a matter of urgency and immediately take bold steps towards the implementation of agreed actions.

One key area where the AU continues to fair poorly because of funding constraints is peacekeeping. At the moment, the Union has no capacity to finance peacekeeping operations on the continent, which puts it at the mercy of the United Nations and Western donors whose financial support often comes far too late to have a meaningful impact on the ground.

This often leads to unnecessary loss of lives in conflict zones.

African leaders who are meeting in Kigali this weekend should build on the fact that the continent has put together a standby force of its own to respond to emergency situations in a timely manner by taking bold measures that will allow this force to swiftly deploy as and when needed.

Without the necessary financial capacity to get the force to put boots on the ground to protect those in danger of losing their lives and restore normalcy in conflict zones, the force will not serve the purpose for which it was created.

The African Heads of State and Government convening in Kigali have the opportunity to provide the leadership that continues to elude the world in ending such dire situations as the violence that continues to tear apart Burundi and South Sudan.

Now is the time to act.