Editor,

RE: "Kigali Summit marks shift in how AU does business” (The New Times, July 19)

We can give ourselves apart on our collective back for a job well-done.

As for whether the Summit decisions will ever see the light of day in their entirety, that will solely depend on whether our individual countries have the political will to translate the desirable (nay, needed) resolutions into concrete action and are not defeated by that fiercest of adversaries, bureaucratic inertia.

Perhaps if the rest of Africa could borrow a leaf from the experience of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects where the heads of state of the countries involved meet at least twice a year in one of their capitals to check for themselves on how their decisions are being implemented on the ground and to show their subordinates that they are following closely how they are really translating their decisions into reality, then the AU will stop being a talking shop and become a really effective organisation.

Unfortunately, such close monitoring by the highest authorities might be feasible for three countries (plus Ethiopia and South Sudan) but extremely wieldy when it involves a whopping 54 countries.

Perhaps when the expected recommendations from President Paul Kagame on how to improve the AU’s efficiency and effectiveness are adopted and implemented, the organisation’s ability to put its Summit’s resolutions into action will also improve. We can only hope.

Mwene Kalinda