Africa's august body, the African Union, has indeed shown its willingness to confront terrorism on the continent. The issue now, as it holds its Summit meeting from July 19-27 at the Commonwealth Resort Munyonyo in Kampala, is whether this determination will be matched by action.

The timing of this Summit, coming just within days of the suicide twin bombings in the Ugandan capital, was unfortunate. It meant that the more sinister and urgent threat of terrorism was always going to overshadow the real business of the Summit, whose theme was "Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development."

Deliberations on the theme were rather laboured and uninspired; maternal and child mortality has been cast on the backburner, yet this continues to foil Africa's drive to achieve its targets for the Millennium Development Goals.

The continent's leaders should have spent their time at Munyonyo discussing delivery of public infrastructure -- electricity, roads, railways, health centres and schools -- which in turn would improve maternal and child health.

Instead, the AU leaders were compelled to spend most of their time discussing the scourge in Somalia. In view of this, the Kampala Summit could not have arrived at a better time to put to test the continental body's credentials of unity, pan-Africanism and the ability to rise above rhetoric.

Popular opinion at the sidelines of the Summit revealed that all delegations were agreed that a military response is indeed necessary to the al Shabaab terrorist attacks that claimed over 80 lives on July 11. Such an offensive would entail significantly scaling up the troop numbers in Mogadishu. On top of that, the Somali threat now requires a change of mandate from peacekeeping to enforcement. But yet again, as happened four years ago, the member states were all too willing when it came to changing Amisom's mandate, yet remained non-committal when it came to contributing troops. The big brothers of the continent like Nigeria, Algeria and Ghana were among the noticeable AU members that have kept away from deploying in Somalia.

Each time top executives of the continental body rose to speak at Munyonyo, they underscored the powerlessness of the AU. No lesser person than the AU Vice Chairperson Erastus Mwencha has pointed out that the amount of financial,logistical and human resources required to defeat al Shabaab are beyond the reach of the continental body.

It is obvious that Somalia is not just Africa's problem. The menace of terrorism, piracy, drug trafficking and money laundering emanating from the Horn of Africa is felt throughout the world. It is critical, therefore, that the Security Council takes the lead role in pursuit of peace in Somalia.

Africa has enough problems of poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality to even dream of financing a war in Somalia whose consequences may be more far-reaching than its leaders can fathom.