allAfrica.com: West Africa: 'Here to Listen, to See and to Learn': Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah Takes Up New Post (Page 1 of 3)

West Africa: 'Here to Listen, to See and to Learn': Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah Takes Up New Post

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah is an international diplomat whose career to date has involved a diversity of assignments.

He has held senior positions in his home country of Mauritania, including minister of commerce and of foreign affairs and ambassador to the United States and to the European Union.

In 1984, he joined the United Nations as special coordinator for Africa and the least-developed countries, and subsequently (1993-1995) as the special representative of the secretary-general in Burundi. For the past six years, he served as executive secretary of the Global Coalition for Africa, an organization headquartered in Washington DC, which convenes forums of African policymakers and their partners in the international community to debate Africa's priority development issues.

Last month, he became the special representative of the UN Secretary-General for West Africa. Prior to his departure from Washington, he discussed his activities at the Global Coalition and his hopes for his new posting in an interview with AllAfrica's Reed Kramer.

During your tenure, the Global Coalition has been active on several fronts. What are some of the high points for you?

On a personal level, what I liked the most is the flexibility of the work. This organization, which is a north/south forum, has the capacity to adapt to changing environments and to address emerging issues, very difficult issues that most organizations do not take, or are hesitant to take. It is also very interesting by its constituencies. We started with ministers of finance and we ended up with journalists, through parliamentarians, private sector, NGOs, and parliamentarians from north and from south. One interesting thing is the commitment -- and I am not saying this to please them - the active involvement of our co-chairs -- the heads of state and senior officials, who participate [in the forums] without being hindered by their function or title.

On concrete matters, I like the fact that we were first in Africa in addressing corruption in public. It was November 1997, in Maputo, at one of our policy forums, with our chairs recognizing that there is corruption in Africa, and the constituencies - the NGOs and parliamentarians -- saying how to fight it. Also there were the partner countries from North America, Canada and Europe saying: 'you need two to tango'. If we are corrupt in Africa, it is because we have corruption in the North.

To address corruption: you need the press to expose it, because without the press you cannot go far. Same thing with police -- the independent police [needed] to investigate and prosecute. Because the institutions of media, of police, of justice are weak in Africa, corruption goes unpunished and the more unpunished it is, the more it discredits the government, the more it discredits the institutions, schools, hospitals. It has a pervasive, negative effect.

The GCA undertook a mission in eight African countries to try to rally support. We are following up implementation with 11 African countries including South Africa, Mozambique, Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Ethiopia and Botswana. I think this is a very important achievement.

Another achievement that is even more difficult and remains to be addressed properly by other organizations is the peaceful hand-over of power [following an election]. Instead of seeing presidents leaving office to be buried or to go under house arrest or into exile, we want to strengthen the democratic process, and you help democracy if you make it acceptable for presidents to step down, and give them assurance through an amnesty at home, an honorable pension and a role for themselves after they leave office.

The meeting took place in November 1999, in Dakar, under the chairmanship of President Abdou Diouf, who was a sitting president and who four months later was defeated and left office peacefully . So to see President Chissano [of Mozambique] chairing the meeting on corruption and President Diouf at this meeting on peaceful transition, for me these were the two most interesting accomplishments I have seen carried out by the board of the Coalition, with the support of the secretary.

So you think the impact on these leaders of their chairing and participating in these meetings is not a diplomatic exercise? You think they actually are affected on a personal level that influences their actions?

I am absolutely convinced that they are not playing a game. In any case, they cannot because the public is not from their country; it is not in their country. For example, the last policy forum was held in Botswana .We had Presidents Museveni from Uganda and Chiluba from Zambia and the prime ministers of Ethiopia and Namibia. At other meetings, we had presidents from different countries, so what is interesting is the direct communication involving a manageable group of Africans and westerners, having a debate between themselves and with African leaders, parliamentarians, cabinet members and also heads of states.

We are also working on the very sensitive issue of security. Since independence, the army has been neglected in most African countries because politically it is not popular to support the army, especially when the armies were making coup d'etats. But with democratization taking place, but not rooted yet, security remains a very dangerous problem in Africa. Not only open civil war, but latent civil war -- how to prevent them. You cannot prevent them if security forces -- armies, police, national guards, gendarmerie -- are not paid and are ill-equipped and mismanaged.

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