MFI/Radio France Internationale (Paris)
Marie Joannidis
2 July 2002
analysis
Durban, South Africa — Organizing A Union For Africa - Durban 2002 (1 of 11)
Wanted by Africans seeking to find their place in the globalisation process, the African Union (AU) is finally holding its first summit this July in Durban, South Africa. Many aspects of its functioning and its ambitions remain to be examined.
The African Heads of State and Government are meeting July 8 to 10 to examine the continent's political and economic problems. In the limelight is the NEPAD, the New Economic Partnership for African Development adopted under the name of the New African Initiative in June 2001 at the OAU summit in Lusaka.
The AU, an idea advanced by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi who hoped to see one day a "United States of Africa", replaces the Organization of African Unity, which was set up in 1963, essentially to promote the total decolonization of the African Continent and the fall of Apartheid in South Africa. This became a reality in the beginning of the 1990's. In particular, the Durban summit will have to determine the form of the Union which was proclaimed two years ago in Syrte, Libya and whose Constituent Act was signed in 2000 in Lome. The AU has been endowed with institutions much like those of the European Union (EU), notably a Conference of the Union, supreme organ at the level of Heads of State and Government, as well as an Executive Council at the ministerial level, an Executive Commission and a Court of Justice. A parliament is also planned but it will only have a consultative role to be defined at a later date. The Constituent Text also foresees the creation of new financial institutions including an African Monetary Fund and an African Investment Bank.
The choice of men
The AU Commission will replace the OAU General Secretariat, led by Amara Essy of the Cote d'Ivoire since the Lusaka summit. He would like to continue his tasks during this delicate transition period. Several names have already been put forward for the post of Chairman of the Conference : notably that of Malian President Alpha Omar Konare, who will have left power in June after a second and final mandate. According to some observers, the South African Head of State, Thabo Mbeki, who hosts the Durban summit, is also a possible choice for this post. Colonel Gadhafi, who would have liked the job no longer has much support, even if he continues to distribute funds throughout Africa and to send soldiers for "peacekeeping", in the Central African Republic, for example. Thabo Mbeki, one of the architects of NEPAD with the Nigerian Olusegun Obasanjo, the Senegalese Abdoulaye Wade, the Algerian Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the Egyptian Hosni Mubarak who joined them, enjoys the prestige of the continent's biggest economy and has regained his diplomatic standing by backing the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth due to political violence and contested elections.
Several things are at stake for the new Union. Its leaders will have to show their maturity by advancing the settlement of conflicts (notably in Central Africa and in Madagascar), which continue to bleed or perturb the continent. They must also show that good governance rhymes with economic development so that donors will be convinced to do more. In fact, 34 of the 53 OAU member states are among the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and poverty now associated with the terrible AIDS pandemic has struck millions of Africans.
Among the positive results obtained by the OAU and which should help consolidate the AU, is greater regional integration, even if some regions still lag behind. ECOWAS in West Africa and SADC in Southern Africa have not only allowed closer economic cooperation but have also advanced the settlement of certain conflicts (in Guinea Bissau and in Burundi for example). The African Union will have to follow through on this road and do more to involve all actors in the political and social arena in its decision-making, including civil society which is beginning to play a role, without forgetting African NGOs which lack resources and still depend too much on international aid. Another issue is the training of peacekeepers in which the OAU and the UN are already involved, along with foreign partners, in particular the Americans, the British and the French.
"A lot remains to be done but we are on the right path because we have decided to take our destinies in our own hands", said one of several African delegates who attended the first NEPAD conference with the international private sector in Dakar last April, which the Senegalese consider a diplomatic success given the large participation of potential investors. "We must be careful to avoid displaying our divisions and rivalries", another official added, recalling the difficulties surrounding the election of Amara Essy as OAU Secretary General last year.
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