Tsvangirai was invited as Zimbabwe’s head of government, a responsibility he will assume next month after being sworn in as Prime Minister under a government of national unity with President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe, who remains Executive President under the power-sharing agreement, is also attending the AU summit.
A power-sharing government is expected to help ease the political situation and allow Zimbabwe to focus on end and economic and humanitarian crisis that marked by acute food shortages, hyperinflation, deepening poverty and a cholera epidemic that has killed close to 3000 people since August.