What you’ll learn
Course Topics
Addis Ababa – 22–25 May 1963
Cairo – 17–21 July 1964
Accra – 21–26 October 1965
Addis Ababa – 5–9 November 1966
Kinshasa – 11–14 September 1967
Algiers – 13–16 September 1968
Addis Ababa – 6–10 September 1969
Addis Ababa – 1–3 September 1970
Addis Ababa – 21–23 June 1971
Rabat – 12–15 June 1972
Addis Ababa – 27–28 May 1973
Mogadishu – (sometime in 1974)
His Role During These Meetings
- Founding Summit (1963): Haile Selassie convened and hosted the founding summit in Addis Ababa where the OAU Charter was adopted.
- Leadership & Hosting: Ethiopia, under Selassie’s initiative and contribution (including hosting Africa Hall), served as the OAU headquarters and venue for multiple summits.
- Presidency of the OAU: He served as the OAU Chairperson on at least two occasions in the 1960s (1963–64 and 1966–67).
What “Meeting” Means Here
When historians talk about OAU “meetings,” they usually mean its summits of Heads of State and Government — the highest-level gathering where major policy decisions were made. There were also many other meetings of:
- Foreign ministers
- Council of Ministers
- Committees on liberation, economics, social affairs, etc.
Haile Selassie took part in many of these as well, but the summits above are the best-documented count of top-level OAU meetings during his era
