By He Wenping

The African Union (AU) convened its 11th summit on June 30 and July 1 in Egypt. The top-level meeting attracted intense media attention around the world because it was held as the world economic growth was slowing down, the international prices of energy resources and food were soaring and the situation in Zimbabwe was getting tense.

At the latest AU summit heads of member states focused their discussion on the main theme of "Realizing the Millennium Goal of Water and Health" and challenges posed by worldwide food price hikes as well as how Africa should deal with the current food crisis.

They also discussed the gap between Africa and the United Nations' Millennium Goals on safe drinking water supply and basic environmental hygiene in addition to ways to end the grave political crisis in Zimbabwe triggered by the presidential election.

The first issue taken up at the AU summit is the huge challenges posed by a worldwide food crisis and soaring energy resource price. As it is widely known that the mounting demand for food around the world, short supply of food caused by natural disasters and bio-fuel development and profiteering activities on the international market have driven up food prices across the globe in recent months, seriously impacting many African countries that depended heavily on food imports. Apart from the prices of sugar, wheat flour and edible oil, which African nations import in large quantities, have also risen sharply.

The rising prices of food and energy resources are putting many African countries not only at the growing risk of ballooning inflation but also the danger of severe social turmoil caused by widespread famine.

Despite the fact that Africa has enough arable land and water resources for self-sufficiency in food production, decades of investment shortages on the governments' part have prevented the continent from fully applying its enormous potential in agricultural development.

Compared to Asian nations' average commitment of 14 percent of GDP to agriculture, African countries spend only 5 percent on average of their GDP every year on the industry. It has thus remained the only continent on Earth where per capita food production was falling in the past 40 years.